André-léon Vivrel (1886-1976): The Sailboat

André-Léon VIVREL (1886-1976) The sailboat Oil on paper mounted on panel Dimensions: 25.5 x 32.5 cm Artist's stamp at the bottom right. Painting in very good condition. Recently cleaned and varnished Beautiful new gilded frame, offered Dimensions with frame: 33 x 40 cm Sold with invoice and certificate of authenticity. Fast and careful shipping with insurance. André-Léon Vivrel was born in 1886 in Paris. At only 15 years old, he decided to become a painter. He was supported in this path by his mother, whom he described as his first teacher, and his father, a wine merchant and winner of First Prize in drawing in 1870. A student at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand, André-Léon Vivrel entered the Académie Julian in 1910. There he studied under Paul Albert Laurens and then attended the studio of Marcel Baschet and Henri Royer at the École des Beaux-Arts. He rented a studio in Montmartre, at 65 rue Caulaincourt, just eight numbers from that of Auguste Renoir. His first participation in the Salon des artistes français was in 1913. Mobilized in 1914, he received the Croix de guerre for heroic conduct in 1917. After the war, he returned to his Montmartre studio. He was awarded an honorable mention at the 1920 Salon and the State bought the two still lifes he exhibited at the Salon des indépendants. He also presented two portraits of Breton women painted on his return from a stay in Ploumanac'h (Côtesss d'Armor). In 1922, Vivrel appeared for the first time at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts. After receiving the Deldebat de Gonzalva prize in 1932, he won a silver medal the following year at the Salon of French Artists with "Le Temps des cerises". In 1934, Vivrel presented bathers, the first painting in a series of large nudes sent to the Salon until 1943. The culmination of his research into the female nude, his "Bathers" from 1939 were awarded a gold medal at the Salon of French Artists. This final award crowned a silver medal obtained by Vivrel in 1937, at the International Exhibition of Arts and Techniques in Paris. Critics unanimously praised his talent and, in 1940, Louis Paillard did not hesitate to write on the front page of the "Petit Journal" of May 6, 1940: "André Vivrel, appears I proclaim, as one of the best in this Salon [of French artists]". The exhibition "Vivrel - Recent Paintings", organized by the Galerie de Berri in May 1942, illustrates, in 31 paintings, the diversity of genres approached by Vivrel but it is that of the landscape that he explores with the most passion. His chosen land is the Loiret, where his older brother Marcel has a second home in Châtillon-sur-Loire, not far from Champtoceaux. In the aftermath of the Great War, penniless, he takes refuge there to paint on location at a lower cost. In the spring of 1926, Vivrel was again in Brittany, from where he brought back the "Port de Camaret" exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries in 1926. A few years later, in 1934, he returned to Côtes d'Armor, where he composed seascapes that were studies of the sky. Vivrel spent the summer of 1926 in Corsica. There he produced watercolours that were presented, from the autumn, at the Galerie Georges Petit and then in New York. Each time, a unanimous critic praised their qualities: "The exhibition of André Vivrel is by a sensitive, fine artist, while remaining broad in his conceptions. His views of Corsica, Brittany and Paris are like his delicately harmonious flowers" ("La Semaine à Paris", 12 November 1926, p. 63). In 1928, he returned to the South of France. Reproducing the warm and vibrant light of Provence, he painted "The Port of Saint-Tropez" exhibited the same year at the Salon des Indépendants. The theme of the Mediterranean also prevailed at the Salon des Tuileries, where Vivrel presented views of ports and cruise ships, witnesses to a flourishing tourist industry. When Vivrel was not on the roads of France, he took Paris as a model. He painted the alleys of the Butte Montmartre and the monuments of the capital, such as Notre-Dame Cathedral, which he produced in series like Monet. He liked to linger on the banks of the Seine, which offered him many unusual viewpoints of the city and inspired paintings that are reminiscent of the Parisian landscapes of Albert Lebourg. Painting until his last breath, André-Léon Vivrel died in Bonneville-sur-Touques on June 7, 1976.