Boats On The Aven By Emile Dezaunay - Brittany

Oil on canvas, signed lower left. Unframed 54 x 65 cm, framed 70 x 80 cm.

Émile Dezaunay (1854-1938) was a painter from the Pont-Aven school, born in Nantes. It was Jules-Élie Delaunay who recommended him for admission to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he joined his studio in 1875. He was also a pupil of Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
He took part in the Triennial Exhibition of Fine Arts in Nantes in 1886, an exhibition to which established painters who had taken part in the Paris Salon were invited. It was at this exhibition that Émile Dezaunay met Maxime Maufra and the two men struck up a close friendship. It was Maufra who introduced him to Pont-Aven in 1890. He stayed at the Gloanec boarding house and met Gauguin, with whom he painted two summers in a row at Le Pouldu.
In 1892, he started hanging out with Aristide Briand and the poet Victor-Émile Michelet in Maxime Maufra's Bateau-Lavoir studio in Montmartre. That same year, he exhibited at the Second Exhibition of Impressionist and Symbolist Painters with Émile Bernard, Maurice Denis, Charles Filiger, Maxime Maufra and Paul Sérusier.
Dezaunay never spoke of the teaching he had received or the theories of light; for him, all that mattered was the freedom of expression of the Neo-Impressionists. His highly personal technique, with its choppy brushstrokes, set him apart from his colleagues. His work can be seen in many museums.