Jules Alfred Herve Mathe 1868 1953 Snowy Garden Of The Hôtel De Vaux Painter's House In Le Mans

Jules Alfred Herve Mathe 1868 1953 Snowy Garden of the Hôtel De Vaux Maison Du Peintre Au Mans 46 x 38 cm view without frame Jules Alfred Hervé-Mathé is a French painter, born February 8, 1868 in Saint-Calais-du-Désert and died on March 3, 1953 in Mayenne. He was director of the Le Mans School of Applied Arts. He has been a member of the Salon des artistes français in Paris since 1909. He directed the Le Mans School of Applied Art from 1899, and this for 35 years. In 1914, he was mobilized as a draftsman on the front, he drew numerous war scenes under shells (kept in Paris at the Army Museum). After the First World War, he intensified his production of landscapes and seascapes. He fell in love with the Breton coasts, creating seascapes, portraits of fishermen, showing the bustling ports of Cornwall, painting in a balanced palette. In 1920 he stayed on Ile-de-Bréhat. In 1922, he stayed in Perros-Guirec and Ploumanac'h, and he went to Brittany every year. From 1925, he attended Concarneau for four years. In 1927, he painted the life of fishermen in Audierne. In 1930, he stayed in Douarnenez and Tréboul, then in Camaret the following year. He will no longer be able to return to Brittany due to the Second World War. Hervé-Mathé, painter: kaleidoscope of an artist's life Brittany, its clear gulfs and its rocks where the waves explode. Port of Tréboul, the small church seems to nestle its flock at the edge of the quay. Returning from fishing in Audierne, the boats push each other from the bow and stern to return at the same time as the tide. Market in Concarneau: young women wear cloche hats, their mothers wear black Sunday skirts and lace headdresses. Sweltering summer afternoon in an orchard in Sarthe, part of the countryside in a Rouillon border, washerwomen braced in their image in the mirror of the water. Or the snow or the roses in his garden at the Hôtel de Vaux in Old Mans. And by the hundreds, on canvas, on cardboard, on wooden panel, in oil, charcoal, pencil, watercolor. He is of Balzacian artistic prodigality: Jules-Alfred Hervé-Mathé. A man curious about everything Jules-Alfred Hervé was born on February 8, 1868 in Saint-Calais-du-désert (Mayenne), which, to a walker, appears like a pretty little village. The forest is its setting, the iron stream is its backdrop. He was 12 when his father died. His mother returns to live with her family in Langres. As a child, he made drawing his hobby. As a young adult, he made a job of it. In the engineering offices, he aligns the layout of the forts which will defend the Place de Langres. After theoretical training, he turned to teaching first in Epinal. In 1899 he was appointed to the Le Mans high school at the same time as he directed the municipal drawing school before transforming it into a School of Applied Art. He lives in Vieux-Mans in the Hôtel de Vaux with his wife Berthe Mathé, whose name he took for the painter's signature. He paints, a lot, everywhere. Including the aeronautical exploits of the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright (the portrait of the first is in the Washington museum). It will also look over the fences of the 24 Hours of Le Mans circuit. He, a placid man of lunches on the grass in gouache, patient observer of the tuna boats returning before the ebb on a sea laced with gold, is in love with the speed, the fury and the noise. War of 1914. Mission: draftsman at the front. The Army Museum at Les Invalides preserves some of his eye-witness accounts of wounds, standing in the mud of the trenches. The consecration of Bayeux He exhibits everywhere, he reaps prizes, prides himself on distinctions. The esteem of his contemporaries, his prolificacy, his measured art, his very exact sense of observation justify his success. He died at home on March 3, 1953. Then, his work was diluted in memories. However, it came back furiously in fashion during three major successive sales in Bayeux (1987, 88, 89) where the auctions were masterfully conducted by M° Balileul auctioneer. Since then, particularly at Le Mans, its rating has been maintained. The seduction of his work in pastel shades is still alive, which legitimizes the pleasure of remembering. Jacques GUICHARD.