Emilio Trad (born 1953), Paris Canal Saint-martin, C.1989, Oil On Canvas

Emilio Trad (born in 1953)
Paris, the Saint-Martin canal, circa 1989
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
65 x 80 cm

Artist of Lebanese origin born in Argentina in 1953, Emilio Trad joined the school of fine arts from Buenos Aires at the age of nineteen where he received his first classical training. He practices according to the old masters by frequenting the major American and European museums during a grand tour that he made between 1978 and 1982, when he moved to Paris. It is based on a great technical mastery of drawing and painting which integrates the fundamentals of classical perspective. In 1992, he won the First Prize for painting at the Salon d'Automne, which opened the doors of Parisian galleries to him. He also exhibited in Buenos Aires and Beirut and won the First Prize from the Taylor Foundation in 1997.

The painting by Emilio Trad that we are presenting offers a view of the perspective of the Saint-Martin canal in Paris, its lock and its footbridges. . This inanimate urban landscape is part of a series of urban views taken in Paris in the early 1990s (ill.1 to 4). The artist's chromatic language, with a palette reduced to browns and grays, offers a refined landscape in an almost static atmosphere. The play of the large verticals of the stylized trees and the horizontal lines drawn by the bridges punctuate the composition.