Eugène Baboulène (1905-1994) Still Life With Chestnuts

A harmony of gray and pastel colors that the artist particularly liked, a light figuration and this particular perspective with which Baboulène treated his still lifes or his interior scenes, certainly following the advice of Antoni Clavé who advised him to concentrate on the essential and to neglect superfluous details.
The work is offered in an elegant gilded, modern frame, which measures 46 cm by 54 cm and 27 cm by 35 cm for the canvas alone.
It represents chestnuts scattered on a white cloth.
In excellent condition, the work is signed lower right.

After attending the École des beaux-arts de Toulon between the ages of 12 and 19, where his first teachers were Edmond Barbaroux and Laurent Mattio, he took classes with Pierre Laurent at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, while enrolling at the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs. The painters he admired at the time were Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard, Vincent Van Gogh and Camille Corot. To support his daily needs, he worked as a night retoucher at the newspaper L'Intransigeant. Despite meeting André Derain, Albert Marquet, Moïse Kisling and Othon Friesz "who all warmly encouraged him", he did not get used to Parisian life: he returned to Toulon in 1931 and made a living from his work as a decorator, which he did in Toulon's most famous brothels as well as at the city's theatre. He was appointed professor of decoration at the École des beaux-arts in Toulon in 1936. He also painted, but without commercial success. In 1946, his meetings with the great Catalan painters Antoni Clavé and Antoni Tàpies were to be decisive. He followed their advice to abandon decoration to devote himself solely to painting, himself saying: "when I started painting, I tried to systematically render what I saw. I went up to Paris where I met Clavé. He, at least, did not bother with details in his painting and I then understood that one could suggest the essence of a landscape or the nudity of a woman's body with a few spots. Only here, you have to choose the spots". From 1950 onwards, he was present at all the important artistic events. Numerous exhibitions are dedicated to him, both in France (Paris, Nice, Rouen, Nantes, Strasbourg, Le Havre, Bordeaux, Lyon) and abroad (Malmö, London, Oran, Geneva, New York, Berlin, Tokyo, Madrid).
Described as "the most thoughtful of figurative painters", this artist is considered one of the best painters of the contemporary Provençal School. He is particularly fond of Provençal seascapes and landscapes, simple and warm atmospheres, which he paints with finesse in harmonies of colors in pastel tones.

Solo Exhibitions

Galerie Romanet, Paris, 1958, 1962, 1964.
Galerie Ganzoni, Geneva, 1960.
Galerie Gattlen, Lausanne, 1963.
Galerie Vercel, New York, 1964.
Galerie Philippe Ducastel, Avignon, October-November 1969.
Galerie Tamenaga, Paris, 1976, October 1980.
Musée Paul-Valéry, Sète, July-September 1981.
Château de Val, Lanobre, summer 1983.
Hôtel de ville de La Seyne-sur-Mer, 1986.
Galerie Dutilleul, Albi, July 1991.
Galerie 26, Paris, 1992.
Eugène Baboulène - Retrospective, Palais Carnolès, Menton, 1998.
Eugène Baboulène - Retrospective 1923-1994, villa Tamaris, La Seyne-sur-Mer, December 2000 - January 2001.
Galerie Estades, Lyon, 2008.
Galerie Estades, Toulon, November-December 2014.
Tribute to Eugène Baboulène, Musée de Saint-Maur-des-Fossés, February-March 2016.
Galerie Rancilio and Domaine de l'Ermitage, Saint-Mandrier, June-August 2018.
Galerie Estades, Toulon, November 2018 - January 2019.
Galerie Estades, Lyon, September-October 2019.

Group Exhibitions and Salons
Salon d'Automne, Paris, 1942, 1943, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958, 1959, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1969, 1970, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1976, 1978, 1980, 1981, 1982, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1989.
Salon des Indépendants, Paris, from 1950.
Salon des Tuileries, Paris, from 1952 to 1961.
Menton Biennale, 1953, 1955, 1957, 1964.
Salon of painters witnesses of their time, Paris, from 1954 to 1958.
Tooth Gallery, London, 1954, 1955, 1958, 1959.
Salon Comparaisons, Paris, from 1955 to 1964.
The Cut Flower, Romanet Gallery, Paris, 1956.
Seventy Five Gallery, New York, 1956.
Landscapes of France, Rouen Museum of Fine Arts, 1958.
Ten Years of Young Mediterranean Painting, Palais de la Méditerranée, Nice, March-April 1960.
Eugène Baboulène, Robert Humblot, Jacques Truphémus, Jacques Yankel, Museum of Art and Archaeology de Valence, 1961.
First International Exhibition of Arts in Tehran, International Exhibition Center, Tehran, December 1974 - January 1975.
From Bonnard to Baselitz, Ten Years of Enrichment of the Cabinet des Estampes, 1978-1988, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, 1992.

Mr. Surleau and the Cyclops, Museum of the Castle of the Dukes of Wurtemberg, Montbéliard, April-September 2013.
Art Salon of the Var Academy, Gérard-Philipe Town Hall, Toulon, March 2018.
From the Table to the Painting, Regards de Provence Museum, Marseille, 2019.

Awards and Distinctions
Prix Ève, 1950.
Prix Othon-Friesz, 1952.
Prix Esso, 1955.
Grand Prix of the 4th Biennale of Menton (ex-æquo with Robert Savary), 1957.
Elected member of the Académie du Var in 1980.
Tributes
Charles de Richter dedicated the tale "La mare au miroir" to Eugène Baboulène in his book Les nouveaux contes de Magali, Éditions Ophrys, 1957.
A square and a house in Toulon, a road in the communes of La Londe-les-Maures and Revest-les-Eaux, a room in the château of Solliès-Pont bear the name of Eugène-Baboulène.