Jean Martin (1911-1996), Female Nude, Circa 1940, Graphite On Paper

Jean Martin (1911-1996)
Female nude, circa 1940
Graphite on paper
Signed on the left
25 x 38 cm
frame: 40 x 50 cm

Self-taught painter born in Lyon in 1911, Jean Martin developed a painting of reality within on the sidelines of the debates around the quarrel over realism. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne in 1933, at the Salon du Sud-Est (Lyon) the following year as well as at the Salon des Indépendants in 1935.

Jean Martin's pictorial style is marked by the ancestry of German masters of the 16th century in the wake of Matthias Grünewald, Lucas Cranach and Albrecht Dürer, whose work he observed at length thanks to the reproductions of works that he religiously preserves. He is also strongly influenced by contemporary Flemish expressionism. The School of Laethem-Saint-Martin, discovered in 1927 on the occasion of the Belgian Art exhibition organized at the Museum of Fine Arts in Grenoble, produced a real visual shock for the artist and particularly imbued his painting with 1930s. From 1933, Jean Martin became friends with the gallery owner Marcel Michaud who was a great support to him. The two men share the ambition of a social art nourished by the conquests of the Popular Front. The following year, his meeting with Henri Héraut, art critic and founder of the Forces Nouvelles group, also proved decisive. In 1938, Jean Martin exhibited at the Billiet-Vorms gallery in Paris on the occasion of the final manifestation of the said group alongside Georges Rohner, Jean Lasne, Henri Jannot and Robert Humblot. There he presents his masterpiece, Les Aveugles (1937)(ill.1), now kept at the Lyon Museum of Fine Arts. These artists particularly disapprove of the systematic distortion of nature.

In 1940, the artist's interest in books and the world of publishing led him to collaborate with Marc Barbezat on the creation of the avant-garde magazine L'Arbalète, for which he designed the first cover. After the war, Jean Martin left Lyon for Paris where he contributed to the revival of the performing arts. He thus rubbed shoulders with major figures of French theater for whom he created numerous sets and theater costumes, sometimes in collaboration with Jean Bertholle, Christian Bérard or even Pablo Picasso. At the beginning of the 1950s, he founded the Art and Christian Tradition gallery, taking an active part in the revival of sacred art.

The sharp, chiseling line marking the contour of the model is reminiscent of the graphic work of Georges Rohner and his boldly framed nudes (ill.2).