Antoine Ferrari (1910-1995) Marseille, The Customs Canal

Passion, color and originality, for this work created in pastel on paper by the most expressionist of Provençal artists Antoine Ferrari. The work signed at the bottom left is presented in a natural oak frame (under completely invisible Museum glass) which measures 46.5 cm by 56.5 cm and 35 cm by 45 cm for the work on view. Historic, it represents the Customs Canal in Marseille, today filled, transformed into a parking lot and renamed Cours d'Estienne d'Orves, a few meters from the Old Port. In this pastel, we can see one of the two mobile wooden drawbridges which, to function, had to be maneuvered by human power, in the background the chimney of a soap factory on Rue Sainte. A canal regretted by the people of Marseille which gave the Old Port the air of Venice, Bruges or Amsterdam.

Ferrari was launched in 1927 by Van Dongen who, admiring its talent, had it admitted to the Salon d'Automne of the same year. From 1930, his hometown (Marseille) subsidized his artistic studies in Paris. In 1937, he obtained the Abd-el-Tif prize, a residency grant which allowed him to spend two years in Algiers.