José Mingret (1880-1969), Sea Of Clouds Over Lake Geneva, Mont Blanc From Colomby De Gex, 1919

Mingret, Louis-Joseph, known as José
Vitré, Ille-et-Vilaine, March 22, 1880 – Saint-Laurent-sur-Saône, Ain, opposite Mâcon, Saône-et-Loire, May 29, 1969

Sea of clouds over Lake Geneva – The Mont Blanc massif seen from Colomby de Gex, Ain, 1919
Oil on canvas
Signed on the back of the stretcher, in drypoint, “José Mingret . 1919 – Le Mont Blanc vu du Colomby de Gex.”
H. 46.5 cm. / W. 56.2 cm.

Work cleaned and varnished by a professional restorer. In its original wooden frame, carved and gilded with fine gold by the artist. On the back of the canvas, head to tail, another composition by the artist depicting a mountain landscape.

Colomby de Gex is a peak in the French Jura in the Ain department, rising to an altitude of 1,688 metres. It is the fourth highest peak in the Jura massif.

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Mingret, Louis-Joseph, known as José
Vitré (Ille-et-Vilaine), March 22, 1880 – Saint-Laurent-sur-Saône (Ain), opposite Mâcon (Saône-et-Loire), May 29, 1969

Louis-Joseph, known as “José”, Mingret was born on March 22, 1880 in Vitré (Ille-et-Vilaine), where his father, originally from Asnières-sur-Saône (Ain), near Mâcon (Saône-et-Loire), was a mortgage registrar. José showed a talent for drawing from an early age. After studying at Pont-l'Evêque (Calvados), then at the Lycée in Le Mans (Sarthe), he took up a law degree at his father’s request, but soon abandoned the faculty to devote himself to painting.

Around 1900, Mingret moved to Paris, on Boulevard Raspail, where he studied under Marcel Baschet (1862-1941), Henri Royer (1869-1938) and William Bouguereau (1825-1905) at the Académie Julian in Paris (1903-1906). Very little is known about his formative years, and only a few rare works show us that he already had a certain talent at the age of 20.

On July 7, 1908, he married Lucie Gibier (1877-1957), a Parisian miniaturist who relieved him of everyday worries throughout his life, allowing him to devote himself exclusively to his art, which he would make a living from, with its ups and downs.

From 1906, he began exhibiting his work in various towns in France and abroad.

Discharged from the army during the 1914 war due to a nerve disorder, from which he suffered throughout his life, José Mingret, like many French artists, took part in the war by painting scenes of daily life in the trenches and on the battlefields. After the war, he was often absent from Paris and travelled a lot, especially in Italy, where he painted in Florence, the Aosta Valley, the Dolomites and Venice. A keen mountaineer and mountain painter, he spent most of the year in Menaggio (province of Como), on Lake Como, which was his base for the high mountains.

This overflowing activity did not, however, make him forget the banks of the Saône, and the dates of his works indicate frequent stays in Mâcon, where his parents had retired. In 1941, Mingret left Paris for Asnières-sur-Saône, where he owned a house inherited from his father. It was here that he began to study the banks of the Saône in greater depth.

The death of Lucie Mingret in 1957 was a terrible ordeal for the artist, soon followed by his departure for the hospital in Saint-Laurent-sur-Saône (Ain), opposite Maçon, where he also died on May 29 1969.

Bibliography

Delaplace, Yves, José Mingret, 1880-1969, Macon, Museum, 2013 (128 pp.).