René Laforest (1893-1972) Old Street Of Périgueux Dordogne

René LAFOREST
(Périgueux 1893 - 1972)
Old street of Périgueux
Oil on canvas
H. 55 cm; L. 46 cm
Signed lower left, located on the back

Provenance: Private collection, Périgueux

Son and grandson of a cabinetmaker, René Laforest grew up in Périgueux in the world of wood and its sculpture. It is certainly thanks to this profession that he traced his first pencil lines on the material, representing moldings and decorations in grisailles and shading and then working them with his gouges. If we do not know his training path, we nevertheless know with whom he did his practical classes. These are Léon Félix and Emile Chaumont, two artists whose palette and brushes were very similar. It is the latter of whom Laforest feels the most in his works and with whom he has shared many painting expeditions. He only exhibited at the Salon Périgourdin in 1925, 1932 and 1950, although he was already working on his works in the early 1910s. In Paris he quickly made his mark in the biggest salons where he sent paintings every year (French Artists, Independents, Autumn, etc.) from the end of the 1930s. In 1927, the year of the death of his master Emile Chaumont, they traveled together in Corrèze from which they brought back works. A small house with a thatched roof is found with extremely close framing, in the corpus of the two painters, paintings made side by side.

This very contrasting composition shows us a summer urban landscape, captured in the shadow of a garden tree covering the narrow alley with its leaves. The background house of the composition is a point of dazzling light, between the whitewashed gable and the flamboyant orange tiles. It is not difficult to imagine the hot Périgord afternoon in which the painter managed to find a little coolness to take out his brushes.