Oil By Lucien Weil 1902 1963 Portrait Of A Man Reading

Oil by Lucien Weil 1902 1963 Portrait of a Man Reading
Lucien Weil or Lucien Weill, born in Biesheim on 10 March 1902 and died in Saint-Brieuc on 3 April 1963, was a French painter.
Lucien Weill was the son of Abraham Weill and Elisabeth Heilbronn1.
A pupil of Jean-Pierre Laurens and Louis Roger, he competed for the Prix de Rome in 1926, where he was awarded second prize. (There was no First Grand Prix that year, but two Second Grand Prix were awarded to Lucien Weil and Alfred Giess, both from Alsace).
In 1930, he married Madeleine Gabrielle Lestienne (1905-1994), a painter. Jean-Pierre Laurens was best man at the wedding. Together they brought up their two daughters, Lisbeth and Claudine, who often modelled for them. In 1931, the couple won 2nd and 3rd prize for illumination. Lucien Weil exhibited regularly at the Salon des artistes français from 1925 onwards, as well as in various French galleries, but he also presented his work regularly to the Alsatian public. Over the years, he exhibited in various galleries in Colmar, at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Mulhouse, as well as at the Maison d'Art Alsacienne and the Galerie de la Société Industrielle. He has also had numerous exhibitions at the Galerie Aktuaryus in Strasbourg. These Alsatian exhibitions, with which he sometimes associated his wife Madeleine, were always large-scale, high- quality shows featuring between thirty and forty works. Lucien Weil made it a point of honour not to disappoint his Alsatian public. In 1934, Lucien Weil was awarded a scholarship by the Académie des Beaux-Arts to study at the Casa de Velázquez in Madrid. This was the crowning achievement of his e`orts and would enable his art to develop to the full. He stayed in Spain with his wife until the summer of 1935. They both painted many canvases. In his portraits, nudes, landscapes and genre scenes, Lucien Weil was closer to life and colour. In the summer of 1939, Lucien and Madeleine Weil were on holiday in Erquy, a seaside resort on the Emerald Coast. It was then, on 2 September 1939, that the artist was mobilised. Wounded on 21 June 1940, he was taken prisoner of war to Stalag III-A in Luckenwalde, near Berlin. He then worked in watercolour, producing some twenty portraits of his fellow prisoners and scenes of daily life. These watercolours bear witness to life in the Luckenwalde camp and, as Paul Cuisinier rightly wrote: "They provided moral support for these same prisoners of war by forcing them to always remain worthy of their image" ("Hommage aux artistes anciens combattants prisonniers de guerre", 7 May-3 June 1965, Paul Cuisinier). During this period of imprisonment, the artist also worked on a satirical newspaper called "Le Masque à gaz". A humorous and unserious newspaper published irregularly twice a month". Lucien Weil appeared in pen and ink caricatures. In 1941, he was repatriated to the military hospital in Vichy. Demobilised in Clermont-Ferrand at the end of July that year, he took refuge in Auvergne in the free zone. His wife and daughter Lisbeth joined him. There he continued his painting career, working for various clients and creating frescoes in local churches. From 17 December 1941 to 1 January 1942, he exhibited his paintings, portraits, figures and landscapes of the Auvergne, as well as his watercolours from the Stalag, at the Galerie Lorenceau in Vichy. From 1943, when the free zone was abolished, he assumed a false identity and became Lucien Walon. He changed his address several times to escape the Nazi regime. From 23 March to 3 April 1945, he exhibited some of the works he had produced in Auvergne at the Nouvelles Galeries in
Aurillac. In 1945, Lucien Weil exhibited his works alongside those of Léon Hamonet (1877-1953) and André Gagey (1888-1964). Like Lucien Weil, Léon Hamonet and André Gagey were complete artists. All three had a predilection for views of the port of Erquy, which they painted endlessly in both oil and watercolour. From then on, the couple and their two daughters, Lisbeth and Claudine, lived near the port every year in the summer. Lucien Weil also remained very attached to Alsace. There are many references to his native region in his paintings. These include still lifes, with their beautiful, typically Alsatian compositions: Betschdorf crockery, fruit (grapes, quinces, etc.) and furniture, as well as portraits, such as "L'Alsacienne", an oil on canvas that he painted after the war and which is now on display in the Council Chamber of Biesheim town hall. Lucien Weil developed strong ties with the town of Erquy, right up until his death in hospital in Saint- Brieuc in 1963. On 3 April that year, at the age of 61, he su`ered a heart attack and died a few hours later. He is buried in Viroflay, near Paris. A street in Biesheim has been named after the artist. At the initiative of the Académie des sciences, lettres et arts d'Alsace, of which Lucien Weil had been a full member of the Fine Arts section since 1956, the former rue des Juifs became rue Lucien Weil on 27 September 1964. A ceremony was organised jointly by the municipality of Biesheim and the Académie d'Alsace.
Notes and references
Biesheim archives, birth certificate no. 4, 1902 (view 192/203).
L'Alsacien-Lorrain de Paris et des départements, français et annexés, 5 September 1926: Arts, Literature and Sciences.
Archives de Paris 14e, marriage record no 758, year 1930 (view 16/31)
Académie des beaux-arts, 1st July 1931: Results of the Roux competitions.
Ref : Caroline Fischer, " Un artiste peintre de Biesheim Lucien Weil (1902-1963) ", Annuaire de la société d'histoire de la Hardt et du Ried, 2012.