Marcel-lenoir, Jules Oury Dit (1872-1931), Portrait Of A Bearded Man, Pencil And Blush On Paper

Marcel-Lenoir, Jules Oury said (1872-1931)
Portrait of a bearded man, supposed self-portrait
Pencil and stump on paper
Signed “Marcel-Lenoir” lower right
63 x 48.5 cm
Sold in a frame with a few tiny marks of the time

Originally from Montauban, Jules Oury, who later adopted the pseudonym Marcel-Lenoir, joined Paris in 1889, then aged seventeen. Strongly encouraged by his goldsmith father to develop his artistic talents, he followed a brief training at the School of Decorative Arts then at the School of Fine Arts. He quickly turned away from goldsmithing to concentrate on painting. The art of the French and Italian primitives that he discovered at the Louvre had a profound impact on him. A great fan of Pierre Puvis de Chavanne, from whom he received encouragement, he was naturally attracted by the symbolist nebula and more particularly by the esoteric universe of the Rose+Croix.

A hard worker with an innate talent for color and composition, Marcel-Lenoir produces a fruitful body of work that is constantly evolving. He makes several stylistic turns, always in a modern and poetic aesthetic, and thus achieves a formidable synthesis of the pictorial innovations of his time. Remaining faithful to massive forms and bright colors, he was interested in varied subjects, both secular and mystical, and participated in the revival of religious painting following the First World War.

A tormented artist full of spiritual uncertainties, Marcel-Lenoir is above all deeply independent. His fierce condemnations of bourgeois art and official institutions will undermine his critical fortunes.