Young Morbihannaises By émile Dezaunay - Brittany

Watercolor on paper, signed lower right. Dimensions without frame at sight 23 x 31 cm, with frame 45 x 54 cm.

Émile Dezaunay (1854-1938) painter of the Pont-Aven school, native of Nantes, it was Jules-Élie Delaunay who recommended him to enter the School of Fine Arts in Paris where he joined his studio in 1875 He is also a student of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes. He participated in the Triennial Exhibition of Fine Arts in Nantes in 1886, an exhibition to which experienced painters who had participated in the Paris Salon were invited. It was on this occasion that Émile Dezaunay met Maxime Maufra and a great friendship was born between the two men. It was Maufra who in 1890 introduced him to Pont-Aven. He stayed at the Gloanec pension and met Gauguin, alongside whom he painted two summers in a row at Pouldu. From 1892, he frequented Aristide Briand and the poet Victor-Émile Michelet in the Bateau-Lavoir workshop of Maxime Maufra in Montmartre. That same year, he exhibited at the second exhibition of impressionist and symbolist painters in the company of Émile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Charles Filiger, Maxime Maufra, Paul Sérusier. Dezaunay never talks about the teaching he received, about the theories of light; for him, all that matters is the freedom of expression of the Neo-Impressionists. A very personal technique with a choppy touch sets him apart from his colleagues. It is present in many museums.