Jean Launois (1898-1942) North African Landscape, A Port, Signed Watercolor

Jean Launois (1898-1942) 
A North African landscape, A Port (Essaouira ?)
signed lower right
Watercolor on paper
14 x 41.5 cm
Framed : 30 x 57 cm

It is most likely a view of the port of Essaouira (known as Mogador at the time), with the tower of the Portuguese fort on the left.

North Africa, and Algeria in particular, played a major role in the life and work of Jean Launois. It is also a reminder that this generation of artists found particular inspiration in the landscapes, colours and, above all, the light of North Africa. 
Unlike the Orientalist artists of the previous century, such as Decamps and Delacroix, who tended to find the exotic or the picturesque shimmering, this generation of artists, including Albert Marquet, to whom Jean Launois was close and who influenced him, and even earlier Paul Klee and his trip to Tunisia, found in this light and these colors the major source of modern art.

About the artist :
Of Vendée origin, Jean Launois very quickly showed a sure talent for drawing and was encouraged in this by his parents. He trained with his fellow Vendeans Charles Milcendeau and Auguste Lepère and then entered the Académie Jullian in Paris.
Enrolled in the First World War in 1916, he continued to draw at the front, and produced numerous portraits of soldiers, which he presented in 1918 to the curator of the Musée du Luxembourg, Léonce Bénédite. The latter bought several works from him, including the magnificent portrait of Charlot and that of the Corporal in a police cap, now in the National Modern Art Museum in Paris. It was also at this time that Launois painted the portrait of Anatole France that was featured on the cover of L'Illustration on 1 January 1924. He won a grant that allowed him to spend two years at the Villa Abd-el-Tif in Algiers, a stay that marked him considerably and attached him forever to this country where he was to end his days. In Algeria, he rubbed shoulders with the painters of the Algiers school, such as Étienne Bouchaud, and became friends with Étienne Dinet and Albert Marquet. In 1923, he won the Indochina prize and began a long journey through Asia, on foot, on horseback or by boat, during which he drew extensively.

His works are exhibited and preserved in many museums, such as the museums of Algiers and Rabat in North Africa, but also several museums in France, including the Musée de l'Annonciade in Saint Tropez and the National Museum of Modern Art in Paris.