Nicolas Camille Lambert (1874 - 1964) Oil On Canvas Signed

Camille Nicolas Lambert born in Arlon in Belgium on May 8, 1874 to a Belgian father and a French mother and died in Juvisy-sur-Orge in France on September 10, 1964, is a post-impressionist painter of genre scenes, seascapes and of landscapes

Here is a luminous oil on canvas in bright and warm colors which can be placed around 1900 signed lower right.
It represents elegant women on a pond on a beautiful summer day. In the background we can see another woman on a boat and in the background the small torpedo which undoubtedly brought them here.

Dimensions including framing: 87 x 70 centimeters.

Biography

Training and beginnings After studying at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Liège, the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Antwerp, and the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Brussels, he exhibited in Paris, at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts of which he is a member. Camille Nicolas Lambert chose in 1894 to devote himself fully to painting and abandoned music, which he had also studied in the class of Eugène Ysaÿe, violin teacher, to whom he had been admitted on September 19, 1890.
He in fact left the Conservatory royal of Brussels, despite his talent rewarded by the first prize of the conservatory (flute and violin), two years earlier.

Camille Nicolas Lambert works in the manner of the Post-Impressionists and specializes in painting figurative subjects including groups of women, beach scenes and carnivals.
He won the second Belgian Prix de Rome in 1904 with an allegorical composition which he entitled The Arts and Peace which embellish life are better than the glory of arms.
In 1911, he was invited to restore the 18th century fresco in the Saint-Blaise chapel of the castle. He left Belgium and settled with his wife, his brother and his sister in Juvisy-sur-Orge.
For some residents of Juvisy-sur-Orge, this departure from Belgium would be due to disappointment; in fact, Camille Lambert decided to participate in the Belgian Grand Prix de Rome in the early 1900s, rewarding the country's best artists. He must then win the first Grand Prix but Belgian custom of the time requires that the reward be awarded alternately every two years to a Flemish candidate and a Walloon candidate. Not coming from the region that could claim first prize that year, he finished second by default.
This disappointment could explain the departure of Camille Lambert for France.

Far from the Parisian social scene, Camille Lambert settled in Juvisy-sur-Orge and nevertheless became a recognized local character, described as a generous and whimsical man, and became friends with the astronomer Camille Flammarion who also lived in Juvisy-sur-Orge. In 1920, he resumed the courses in artistic and industrial drawing, painting, architecture and engraving on copper and wood which were offered before the First World War at the municipal school of Juvisy-sur-Orge (born from the transfer from the regional drawing school of Montlhéry in Juvisy in 1901).
From 1921, he also taught drawing classes at the Saint-Charles Catholic college in Juvisy-sur-Orge. He wants to develop education accessible to all. Camille Lambert then fought with the municipality to benefit from a public subsidy in order to cover the expenses of the school and the treatment of his salary, which he obtained in 1935. Between 1935 and 1938, he produced for the church Notre-Dame de Lourdes du Val d'Athis-Mons oil paintings on canvas representing the fifteen mysteries of the rosary. These twenty-two paintings are then pasted and mounted on the interior walls of the building. The whole was destroyed on April 18, 1944 by Allied bombings targeting the Juvisy-sur-Orge marshalling yard.
Retired since the start of the Second World War, Camille Lambert nevertheless opened industrial design and drawing-painting classes in her workshop. In 1948, struck by cerebral anemia, the painter's health declined sharply, but he continued to teach and in 1954 offered to donate his house to the town of Juvisy-sur-Orge, on the condition that he settle there. a “municipal school of painting, industrial and artistic design, architecture, sculpture”. Gradually losing his lucidity, he died on September 10, 1964, at the age of 90. He is buried in the old cemetery of Juvisy-sur-Orge, rue Petit, near his wife.

Exhibitions

1907: Salon 1907, Brussels, Belgium. 1908: Exhibition of Belgian art, Berlin. 1912: Exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. 1912: Member of the Pour l'art circle, he exhibited there in 1912 at the twentieth salon 1913: Salle Forst, Antwerp, Belgium (individual exhibition). 1913: Universal Exhibition of 1913 in Ghent 1914: General Exhibition of Fine Arts, Salon Triennale, Brussels, Palais du Cinquantenaire 1920: Salle Aeolian, Brussels, Belgium (individual exhibition). 1921: Exhibition of Belgian art, Galliera museum, Paris, France (works exhibited: Episode of the terrors of the German occupation, Village festival, Triumphal entry of the royal family into Brussels). 2007: Personal exhibition by Camille Lambert, Thale Museum, Germany (individual exhibition). 2008: Waves and mirrors exhibition. Ballina Arts Centre, Ballina, Ireland (retrospective). 2021; Arlon, Gaspar Museum (individual exhibition).

Public collections

Archaeological Museum of Arlon Museum of Fine Arts of Liège Fine Arts Mons Municipal Museum of Fine Arts of Ixelles (Carnival in Nice and Artists' Meeting) Gaspar Museum, Arlon, Belgium; Municipal collection, Juvisy-sur-Orge.