Marcel Belle (1871-1948) "village In Summer, Creuse?" Crozant School, Student Martin, Fauve Basque

Rare 2nd oil on cardboard from a series of 3 (see last photo) by Marcel Belle representing a village in summer, signed lower right. Size of the painting alone without frame 27x35cm or 35x43cm including frame. This is therefore a superb post-Fauve composition by Marcel Belle, around 1920/30 where the artist represents a village in summer, it could be in Creuse as well as in the center of France. As usual, we immediately recognize his touch, very refined in the manner of the Fauves and especially Albert Marquet from whom he will draw a lot of inspiration. With here a palette of beige, ochre, gray, green, blue .... and of course these famous black outlines. Marcel Gaston Belle (1871-1948) is the descendant of a line of French artists which includes Alexis-Simon Belle (1674-1734). In Paris, he began painting at the Grande Chaumière, becoming friends with Henri Martin, whose student he also became. It was therefore quite natural that his first paintings were of pointillist style, a very beautiful pointillism, sometimes animated, these paintings are extremely rare on the market but some were sold during the sale of his studio at Drouot and the artist's record is a divisionist canvas of 160x190cm sold for over €166,000 in 2000 at Sotheby's in New York. He then came to the Creuse valley, hence his reference in the Crozant school, which he always painted with his dotted touch, but little by little he abandoned it under the influence of Albert Marquet for his definitive touch, therefore with large flat areas in the manner of the Fauves. He will always come regularly to paint in the Creuse valley, but he will also very often go to paint in the Basque Country, but also in Provence, Brittany, in the South, in Paris, in Alsace, in the Alps etc... He will send works to the Salon d'Automne in 1920, then to the Nationale des Beaux Arts between 1921 and 1945, to the Salon des Indépendants between 1926 and 1939, then will have a personal exhibition at Bernheim Jeune in 1937. His works are today very rare and very popular with amateurs especially those on the Creuse valley and the Basque Country, but only a few, the proof is this canvas recently sold in 2022 in Melun 5600€ at the hammer which represented a river bank probably the Seine. This oil on cardboard is in perfect condition, delivered in a modern frame Work guaranteed authentic