Gaston La Touche (1853-1913) Painting Spanish Basque Country Ondarroa Spain

Very beautiful oil on canvas signed by the painter Gaston La Touche, it represents the port city of Ondarroa located in the Basque Country in Spain, one of the main fishing ports of the region.

The oldest bridge in the city, the 'puente viejo', is recognized as the church of Santa María and the building of the fishermen’s brotherhood.
The scene is very lively, full of life.

We appreciate the colorful palette, as well as the touch with volume of the painter Normand.

The painting is in very good condition.

Dimensions on sight: 64 x 49 cm
Frame dimensions: 81 x 67 cm

Gaston La Touche (1853-1913)

Born on 22 October 1854 in Saint-Cloud into a family from Normandy, he convinced his parents to take drawing lessons from 1864 under the direction of Mr. Paul, a drawing teacher, for three francs per month. These courses were definitively interrupted by the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 when the family found refuge in Normandy, at Champsecret, in the Orne.

In 1875, he was received at the Salon with his Portrait of Edmond Got, a bas-relief medallion of the actor and dean of the Comédie-Française, and some etchings in a naturalistic vein. Between 1877 and 1879, he met Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, whose studio Duranty and Marcellin Desboutin, who meet at the café de la Nouvelle Athènes in Paris. He also met Émile Zola, whom he admired and illustrated in short stories and novels such as L'Assommoir.

From the 1880s onwards, he painted intimate scenes in the 17th century Dutch style. He exhibited his painting The Lady of the Fifth at the 1881 Salon. In 1884, he produced a painting entitled The legend of the point of Argentan, which can be seen at the Alençon museum. In 1889, Gaston de La Touche painted Grève à Anzin, a workers' parade inspired by Émile Zola.

On the advice of his friend Félix Bracquemond, he intensifies the colors of his palette and draws his subjects in the wake of Antoine Watteau’s Fêtes galantes and François Boucher’s genre scenes. His landscapes, luminous portraits, in oil, pastel or watercolor, also influenced by Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, meet an immediate success at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts.

In 1891, Gaston de La Touche burns paintings he is not satisfied with. He receives the order for decorations from the town hall of Saint-Cloud and the Salle des fêtes of the Ministry of Justice in Paris. In June 1899, he joined the Société nouvelle de peintres et de sculpteurs, with a first collective exhibition at the Georges Petit gallery in Paris in March 19008. In 1900, he participated in the decoration of the restaurant Le Train Bleu at Gare de Lyon in Paris. He shares his activity between his workshop at 31, rue Dailly, in Saint-Cloud and his property of Champsecret in the Orne. With his wife, Jacqueline, they receive many; among the guests are Charles Gounod, Édouard Louis Dubufe, Édouard Detaille, Marcellin Desboutin, Paul-César Helleu, Jean-Louis Forain, Félix Bracquemond, Edmond Rostand and Louis Edmond Duranty.

Gaston de La Touche becomes a member of the Salon des artistes français in 1883. He was made a knight of the Legion of Honour in 1900 and promoted to an officer of the same order in 1909.

Gaston de La Touche died on 12 July 1913 in Paris.

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