Marcel Gromaire (1892 - 1971) The Banks Of The Marne 1925

Beautiful original ink produced in 1925 by Marcel Gromaire. this is a preparatory study for the painting entitled "The banks of the marne" and produced the same year This original ink is signed and dated Presented in a beautiful natural wood frame and under glass the dimensions including frame: 65 x 57 centimeters Biography: Born in the North Marcel Gromaire began his schooling in Douai, then in Paris, where his father taught at the Lycée Buffon, passed his baccalaureate in law, quickly abandoned the legal career then began in 1910 to attend a few workshops in Montparnasse. He carried out his military service in Lille and spent six years in the army during the First World War (he was wounded in 1916 in the Somme). Back in Paris, Gromaire provides film criticism for Le Crapouillot. He met Maurice Girardin who, for ten years, purchased all of his production from him by contract. He moved to Villa Seurat in 1925 and continued writing his personal notes which he kept until the end of his life (Painting 1921-1939 published in 1980 by Denoël). He then exhibited La Guerre at the Salon des Indépendants. Like Rouault or Dufy, Gromaire works away from groups and trends. Friend of Matisse and Léger in his youth, he was however “no one’s student”. He created his own style, which cannot be confused with any other. A style which combines a powerful lyrical breath with the taste for a geometric construction. Marcel Gromaire thus invents a realism which frees itself from the rules and reflects a little the inspiration of the Romanesque or Gothic primitives. “He builds his nudes like cathedrals and treats skyscrapers like theorems,” one wrote. Gromaire was recognized very early by galleries and museums: Pierre Matisse exhibited him at the inauguration of his New York gallery in 1931; from 1947 to 1956 he exhibited at the Galerie Louis Carré. In 1963, a retrospective was devoted to him at the National Museum of Modern Art, then in 1980, at the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. Doctor Girardin, who regularly bought paintings from him, bequeathed his collection, around a hundred works, to the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris. Gromaire painted just over 700 paintings, with an average of 10 per year, hence the rarity of his work on the market. Gromaire's intellectual influence made him the spokesperson for independent art during the 1920s to the 1950s. The solidity of this work places it above fashions and eras. He is the only creator of the 20th century who was able to give the weight of the classic to a research which nevertheless counts among the most authentically modern.