André-léon Vivrel (1886-1976): Fruit Trees In Flowers

André-Léon VIVREL (1886-1976) Fruit trees in flower Oil on canvas Dimensions: 50 x 61 cm Signed lower right Painting in very good condition, recently cleaned and varnished. Without frame. Sold with invoice and certificate of authenticity. Possibility of shipping in France and abroad André-Léon Vivrel was born in 1886 in Paris. At just 15 years old, he decided to become a painter. He was supported in this path by his mother, whom he described as his first teacher, and his father, a wine merchant and first prize winner in drawing in 1870. A student at the Louis-le-Grand high school, André-Léon Vivrel returned to Académie Julian in 1910. There he studied with Paul Albert Laurens and then attended the studio of Marcel Baschet and Henri Royer at the École des Beaux-Arts. He rented a studio in Montmartre, at 65 rue Caulaincourt, just eight numbers from that of Auguste Renoir. His first participation in the Salon of French Artists dates from 1913. Conscripted in 1914, he received the Croix de Guerre for heroic conduct in 1917. After the war, he returned to his Montmartre workshop. He was awarded an honorable mention at the Salon of 1920 and the State bought him the two still lifes that he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. He also presents two portraits of Breton women painted on their return from a stay in Ploumanac'h (Côtesss d'Armor). In 1922, Vivrel appeared for the first time at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. After receiving the Deldebat de Gonzalva prize in 1932, he won a silver medal the following year at the Salon of French Artists with “Le Temps des Cerises”. In 1934, Vivrel presented bathers, the first painting in a series of large nudes sent to the Salon until 1943. The culmination of his research on the female nude, his “Baigneuses” of 1939 were awarded a gold medal at the Salon of French artists. This ultimate award crowns a silver medal obtained by Vivrel in 1937, during the International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques in Paris. Critics unanimously praised his talent and, in 1940, Louis Paillard did not hesitate to write on the front page of the “Petit journal” of May 6, 1940: “André Vivrel, I proclaim, appears as one of the best in this Salon [French artists].” The exhibition “Vivrel - recent paintings”, organized by the Galerie de Berri in May 1942, illustrates, in 31 paintings, the diversity of genres approached by Vivrel but it is that of landscape that he explores with the most passion. His chosen land is Loiret, where his older brother Marcel has a second home in Châtillon-sur-Loire, not far from Champtoceaux. In the aftermath of the Great War, penniless, he took refuge there to paint on the subject at a lower cost. In the spring of 1926, Vivrel was again in Brittany, from where he brought back the “Port de Camaret” exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries in 1926. A few years later, in 1934, he returned to Côtes d'Armor, where he composed seascapes which are so many studies of the sky. Vivrel spent the summer of 1926 in Corsica. There he created watercolors which were presented in the fall at the Galerie Georges Petit and then in New York. Each time, a unanimous review praises their qualities: “André Vivrel's exhibition is a sensitive, fine artist, while remaining broad in his conceptions. His views of Corsica, Brittany and Paris are like his delicately harmonious flowers” (“La Semaine à Paris”, November 12, 1926, p. 63). In 1928, he went again to the South. Restoring the warm and vibrant light of Provence, he painted “The Port of Saint-Tropez” exhibited the same year at the Salon des Indépendants. The Mediterranean theme also prevails at the Salon des Tuileries, where Vivrel presents views of the port and liners, witnesses of a thriving tourist industry. When Vivrel is not on the roads of France, he takes Paris as a model. He painted the alleys of the Butte Montmartre and the monuments of the capital, such as Notre-Dame Cathedral, which he painted in series like Monet. He likes to linger on the banks of the Seine, which offer him many unusual views of the city and inspire his paintings which are reminiscent of the Parisian landscapes of Albert Lebourg. Painting until his last breath, André-Léon Vivrel died in Bonneville-sur-Touques on June 7, 1976.