Abel Bertram, Studies Of Female Figures, Drawing, Signature Stamp

Abel Bertram (1871 – 1954)
Study of female figures – Market day
Pencil on paper
16.5 x 10.3 cm
Signature stamp at bottom, center

Framed, under glass
Dimensions with frame: 30.6 x 24 cm
Very good condition

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A charming drawing which studies, in different postures, the silhouettes of women of all ages, in everyday gestures, certainly during a market scene A study sheet whose style seems to be halfway between Eugène Boudin and Théophile Steinlen. So many passers-by, that we come across every day, but that only a painter of this talent takes the time to look at and capture with a quick and precise hand at the same time.

A beautiful echo between this drawing by Bertram and the Louis Valtat drawing, available on my gallery.

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We quote, for pleasure, the introduction of the painter and art critic Georges-Armand Masson, studying and praising the art of Abel Bertram, as a preface to the catalog of an exhibition entirely dedicated to the artist, at the Durand-Ruel gallery, in 1959:

“Abel Bertram is not one of those painters who are easily defined. We could sometimes classify him under the impressionist label, sometimes lock him in the cage of the Fauves, with his friends Rouault, Marquet, Valtat, but I fear that this will quickly become a task. He appears as a loner, working away from any school, and caring neither for fashions nor systems. I remember thinking, when I first met him, that he could have been a lighthouse keeper or a shepherd.

He possessed that natural nobility that the professions of silence confer to those who practice them. Abel Bertram's art does not reveal its secret at first glance. However, there is nothing airtight about it. But he doesn't raise his voice. His language is discreet. To follow him, you need to have a keen ear. I owe him happy moments, when, in the chaos of some Salon, where each painter tried to shout louder than the others, I stopped in front of his canvas to taste the subtle harmony of lines and colors.

Three themes tempted him alternately: Woman, which he liked to paint, in a generous paste, with a sort of religiosity. The Child, laughing or pensive, in the light of the gardens, on the sand of the beaches, the cornflower child or the poppy child among the wheat. Finally, and above all, the Sea. Born in this marshland, near Gravelines, which the wind, without respite, sweeps away, where the rain blurs the shapes of the landscape, Abel Bertram is one of those, with Jongkind, Boudin, Friesz, who were able to best translate the restless melancholy of the sea and its changing poetry. To do this, he only needs a few strokes, a few touches. The thwarted straight lines of the masts shaken by the swell. The comma of a reflection. The nervous brushstroke which sculpts the torso of a wave or which bulges the belly of a cloud. With this nothing, like the Japanese, he grasps the essential. And always the same tact, the same restraint, in the density of his oils as in the fluidity of his watercolors. Nothing too much.

The work of Abel Bertram gives us a great lesson in love. Love of human beings, love of nature. Nature... Eh! Yes. This painter still believed in nature, in its inexhaustible resources. We changed all that. We repeat the proud error of the rebel Angel. Upon leaving the School of Fine Arts, a young painter can do no less than recreate the world. I do not deny the grandeur of this ambition, but it seems to me tragically foolish. I have said this many times to my friend the Devil, for whom I have an old tenderness. That nature has had its time, possible. But for how long? Happy are those who have kept their fervor for him. These are the painters of tomorrow. »