Henri Person, The Port Of Saint-tropez

Henri Person (1876-1926)
The port of Saint-Tropez
Oil on panel, stamp lower left
16 x 24 cm

History :
Person Workshop, Person estate.

Bibliography :
Henri Person, Les Couleurs du Midi, under the direction of Marie-Aude Bossard, reproduced under number 51, p.129

Certificate of authenticity :
Madame Marie-Aude Bossard, granddaughter of the artist.

Henri Person was born in Amiens in 1876, into a bourgeois family. His first stays in the South of France date back to his childhood, since his parents owned a villa in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, where the family regularly went on vacation.

The young man first studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, under the direction of Fernand Cormon in particular. His first shipments to the Parisian Salons date from 1903: to French Artists until 1910, then to the Independents from this date and until the end of his life.

At the beginning of the 1900s, the young painter arrived in Saint-Tropez, a small Mediterranean port which would have great success in the years to come, but which was then only a fishing hamlet with typical charm. There he found Paul Signac, who had partly settled there since the end of the last century. The two artists share, in addition to their passion for painting, a second common passion for the sea and navigation. The two men formed an unwavering friendship despite their age difference, even having a jointly owned boat, named Le Sinbad. In 1907, they undertook a trip together to Constantinople and the young Person, advised by the master, adopted the divisionist technique for the long term. However, he demonstrates a more discreet and gentler temperament which is reflected in the adaptation of the palette.

Throughout his life, he built his work on themes that were dear to him: boats, the sea, the trees that border it and the small villages of the Mediterranean coast. Person, however, seems to gradually distance himself from divisionism to get closer to the group of young painters who discovered Saint-Tropez in the early 1900s, notably Henri Manguin, Albert Marquet and Charles Camoin. The artist also gives us, like Paul Signac, subtle and poetic watercolors in which beat the heart of the Mediterranean, its spirit and its warmth.

It is in Tropez that the artist commits body and soul to the development of a project which shows, if necessary, his deep attachment to his adopted port: the creation of the future museum of Saint-Tropez . For this, he enlisted the help of artist friends such as Alphonse Stival, Carlos Reymond, André Turin. The project was presented and approved unanimously during the municipal council of September 4, 1921. The Museon Tropelen gradually came to life, and in five to six years, around thirty works were already brought together thanks to the generosity of the artists who frequent the small port: Pierre Bonnard, Henri Lebasque, Charles Camoin, Louis Valtat, Henri Manguin...

Henri Person died in 1926, temporarily stopping the growth of the collection, but the torch will soon be taken up by Georges Grammont, patron who made this his own. commitment. Taking up this original matrix, he enriched the selection of works and thus gave birth to the Annonciade museum, which today has one of the most beautiful collections in its field. In October 2015, under the direction of the artist's granddaughter Marie-Aude Bossard and Editions Galerie Alexis Pentcheff, the first monograph dedicated to Henri Person was published. On the occasion of the presentation of the work at the Annonciade museum, in December 2015, Marie-Aude Bossard gave the curator, Mr. Jean-Paul Monery, all of the artist's archives which concern the creation of the museum. Archives Marie-Aude Bossard