A Gouache, London By Gaston Prunier

PRUNIER Gaston 1863-1927

Painter of landscapes, architectures, watercolourist, pastellist, decorator. He was a pupil of Lhuillier in Le Havre. He settled in 1887 in Paris.
He began to exhibit in Paris in 1899 at Bing, then appeared in Paris at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts with La Cathédrale in 1901 and, in 1902, Chantier de construction.

He became a member of this salon in 1903. Gaston Prunier made himself the painter of popular districts, scenes on the fortifications, and at the same time of natural or artificial architecture: he likes cathedrals and mountains, houses under construction or being demolished and the sheer rocks. This taste for verticals, ascending lines, which leads the artist to place the horizon line very low in the painting, is one of the characteristics of his talent.

Finally, we cannot overlook the numerous watercolors of a rich invoice on a very nourished drawing that Gaston Prunier signed. Among his other works: La Rue Réaumur, 1906; The Thames, 1908; The Weekly Rest, 1909; Le Lac Majou, 1911, as well as several views of Brittany and the Pyrenees. In 1894, he was responsible for the decoration of the church of Saint-Palais in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gérald Schurr, in: The Little Masters of Painting 1820-1920, value of tomorrow, t. III, Editions de l'Amateur, Paris, 1976. MUSEUMS: DIJON – LE HAVRE – LIMOGES – PARIS: Sunday at the fortifications 1904 – PARIS (Carnavalet Museum): The Saint-Martin canal – PARIS (former Luxembourg Museum) – TOULOUSE