Marcel Arnaud (1877-1956) Still Life With Open Book

A sober and rustic composition but a lively and resolutely modern touch for this powerful still life by the Aix en Provence master Marcel Arnaud. The work is done in oil on cardboard, it is offered in a pretty Louis XIV style gilded frame which measures 68 cm by 82.5 cm, and 49.5 cm by 65 cm for the painting alone. It represents a Still Life, a Moustiers vase, a copper ewer and an open book on a table. In good condition, only a few usual cracks, normal for a work from this period. A warm and powerful work.

Student of Jules Maistre at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Marseille and apprentice with the decorators Apy & Partol, he went to Paris at the age of 18 where he worked for Capezat and Thibé, made theater sets for Jusseaume while studying the old masters at the Louvre Museum, notably Rembrandt. He met the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle. Nostalgic for his hometown, he returned to Marseille where he married in 1904. He met Paul Cézanne (1839-1906) in Saint-Henri sur Marseille and he painted several works there in his presence. He exhibited in several regional salons (Gold Medal in Toulon in 1902), he belonged to the “le Cénacle” Group and he presented sixty works at the Jules Olive Gallery. In 1914 he was appointed professor at the Aix-en-Provence School of Fine Arts and then became its director from 1917 to 1946. At the same time, Marcel Arnaud refused to give up all of his own works already painted at the famous painting dealer Ambroise Vollard who had requested it by mutual agreement. His friend John Rewald will support him on this point, John Rewald writes: “Marcel Arnaud brings to painting the Cézannian continuity that time has not left to Paul Cézanne”. The numerous exchanges of letters between Cézanne and Marcel Arnaud were also in the hands of John Rewald. He also became the curator of the Granet museum in Aix-en-Provence from 1926 to 1947. In 1953-1954, he painted a series of works on Évian facing Geneva. He exhibited in Marseille or Aix-en-Provence until his death in 1956. He is buried in the Saint-Pierre cemetery in Aix-en-Provence, in the same place as Paul Cézanne (1839-1906). Marcel Arnaud is a knight of the Legion of Honor