Almond Tree In Flowers, 1925 - Emmanuel-charles Bénézit - Provencal School

Superb painting by the painter Emmanuel-Charles Bénézit. With lightness and mastery, the painter creates from the tip of his brush an almond tree in flower with view under the branches, of a Provençal farmhouse melted in the landscape.
Thus in a few informal touches, blue, green, white, black, a little pink and brown, Emmanuel-Charles Bénézit offers us the vision of a spring landscape of magnificent poetry, in the surroundings of Bormes -les-Mimosas in "Provence" where he was installed at that time.

I warmly thank Mrs. M Montpellier, president of the Association of Friends of Bénézit, for having authenticated the work which will be included in the online catalog raisonné.
(Currently a temporary exhibition of the painter is taking place at the Bormes-les-Mimosas Museum until November 5).

Emmanuel-Charles Bénézit was born on November 28, 1887 into a wealthy and cultured family.
He is the son of the creator of the "Dictionnaire Bénézit" and owner of several art galleries in Paris in which he spends his time and where artists such as Victor Hugo and Vincent Van-Gogh pass.
He forged strong ties with Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley who made frequent visits to the family home.
Emmanuel-Charles Bénézit practices painting from childhood and free from material constraints, he can devote himself to his art.
He achieved some success in the Parisian Salons, exhibiting at the Salon des Indépendants from 1907 to 1928, at the Salon d'Automne from 1922 to 1933, and at the Salon des Tuileries from 1926 to 1938.
A major exhibition at the Gérard gallery in 1938 deserves an excellent review from Louis Vauxcelles.
He left for Provence for health problems in 1915. There he discovered the light of the South and the mistral which seemed to bring distant landscapes closer to the foreground; he then began to study nature there through the light.
He died in Hyères on October 27, 1975.
His work was exhibited in a retrospective at the Salon d'Automne in Paris in 1989 and in several museums in France.
The Association of Friends of Bénézit has organized exhibitions:
2002: Saint-Rémy-de-Provence at the Présence Van Gogh art centre;
2002: Bormes-les-Mimosas, at the Arts and History Museum;
2005: Hyères-les-Palmiers, retrospective (figurative works and imaginative compositions).
2022: Bormes-les-Mimosas, at the MHAB-Museum of History and Art for its reopening.
A website is dedicated to the painter http://www.benezit-the-painter.com/index.html

Oil on cardboard in very good condition signed and dated “E.Bénézit 25” lower right.
Size: 14,5 x 17,5 Inches without frame and 21,3 x 24,2 Inches with its solid wood Montparnasse frame.