Camille Hilaire (1916-2004) Large Painting - The Symphony Orchestra

Large painting watercolor and gouache by Camille Hilaire (1916-2004) signed lower right HILAIRE depicting a rich post-cubist composition representing a Symphony Orchestra on a red background. Beautiful subject of great technical and poetic virtuosity symbolizing a theme dear to the artist, probably his favorite movement: The Adagietto of the Fifth Symphony by Gustave Mahler by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of H. Von Karajan. Beautiful gilded wood frame decorated with gold leaf segments. Good general condition, dimensions: 86 cm X 66 cm Camille Hilaire was born in 1916 in Metz. Young, he was spotted by Jean Giono and Nicolas Untersteller, the future director of the Beaux-Arts in Paris, both of whom welcomed Camille Hilaire into their studio in Metz, and then he joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was a student of Nicolas Untersteller and Maurice Brianchon. This academic success opened the doors to the various Parisian Salons. As his career progressed, he received strong recognition from his peers. In 1947, he became a professor of drawing and decorative compositions at the École Nationale Supérieure d'Art in Nancy. In addition, in 1950, he took part in the Prix de Rome and won the 2nd Grand Prix. In 1958, he was appointed professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In addition, the same year, he was awarded the Prix de la Société des Amateurs d'Art. In the second part of his career, he developed an appetite for watercolor, but especially for stained glass painting and tapestries. He will create many stained glass windows in some large churches in France, which will allow him to travel, Camille Hilaire was influenced by many small and large encounters. Thus, the great Italian masters of the Renaissance inspired his play of light in the majority of his paintings. Moreover, at the beginning of his career, he was confronted with the works of Albrecht Dürer, who influenced his fine and precise line. From 1964, he began to exhibit in France and then abroad, obtaining numerous prizes and devoting himself to different techniques such as large sets, mosaics, theater costumes, tapestry, watercolor without forgetting stained glass. Raymond Charmet, painter and art critic, said when speaking of him: "Hilaire, a complete and thoughtful painter, deeply penetrates the masses of a radiant light, recomposing the rainbow in its intensity. He thus continues Cézanne's effort to rediscover the architecture of matter that he suggests to us through a warm atmosphere, radiant with joy." In Lorraine, some of his works can be seen exhibited, notably at the Musée de la Cour d'Or in Metz and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Nancy. Around twenty churches in Lorraine are decorated with stained glass windows by Camille Hilaire, including four in our region: the churches of Saint-Nicolas and Saint-Joseph in Yutz, the church of Saint-Maximin in Thionville and the church of Saint-Luc in Rochonvillers. Christiane Gérard wrote about this in the Trait d'Union, the Yutz newspaper: "But it is above all through the seductive luminosity of the stained glass, through the lines of force and rhythms born of a well-thought-out cubism that Camille Hilaire expresses himself in many religious buildings in Lorraine, particularly in the churches of Saint-Nicolas and Saint-Joseph in Yutz, whose stained glass windows in Baccarat crystal were entrusted to the Atelier Benoît in Nancy in 1958." Camille Hilaire is part of a certain tradition of academic painting, but sometimes synthesizing the subject to the point of abstraction. He plays with shapes, light and colors with mastery, and has often accepted official commissions, such as the decoration of the France and Liberté ocean liners.