Bernard Boutet De Monvel (1881-1949), Erotic Female Nude, Circa 1940, Pencil On Paper

Bernard BOUTET de MONVEL (1881-1949)
Study; Erotic female nude, circa 1940,
Pencil on paper
Stamp lower right
47.5 x 31.2 cm
Provenance: family of the artist

Painter, engraver, illustrator and decorator born in Paris in 1881, Bernard Boutet de Monvel died prematurely in an air accident in the Azores in 1949. Introduced to drawing by his father, the illustrator Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel, the young man was destined very early for an artistic career. From 1897, he took lessons from the painter Luc-Olivier Merson and the sculptor Jean Dampt and presented his first paintings at the Salon in 1903. He also produced numerous illustrations which appeared in various fashion magazines.

Mobilized as a reservist when the First World War broke out, he participated in the Salonika expedition as an aviator. Fallen under the spell of Morocco, he remained there until 1925 and delivered a singular and powerful vision through landscapes and animated scenes far from the clichés of orientalist paintings. The artist, described as a worldly painter, produces a very personal figurative work. He ignored none of the artistic movements of his time without ever fully assimilating to any of them.

The drawing on tracing paper that we are offering, rare in the production of Bernard Boutet de Monvel, is among a series of drawings probably made around 1940 in connection with an illustration project which will never be published. The very free line of our drawing shows a spontaneity which denotes with its graphic production.