Eugène Alluaud (1866-1947) Hoarfrost On The Ruins At Crozant. Guillaumin, Detroy, Limoges

New large oil on cardboard by Eugène Alluaud who paints here a magnificent white frost on the ruins of Crozant in the Creuse valley around 1920/1925, signed lower right. Size of the painting alone without frame 60x72cm This is indeed a magnificent post-impressionist composition by Eugène Alluaud who here creates a mythical view of the ruins of Crozant in the Creuse valley during a white frost in winter; at this time, around 1925, the artist uses a powerful and vigorous touch, his very impressionist style a few years earlier gradually moves towards the art of Cézanne. His framing is emblematic of the Crozant school, with a foreground on the right with a bare tree and vegetation, then a plunging view of the valley, then more sussitive with in the distance the ruins standing out on the ridge. Very beautiful Alluaud, worthy of the 4 best painters of the school of which he is incontestably part with Guillaumin, Detroy and Madeline. I no longer present Eugène Alluaud therefore emblematic painter and especially unifier of the school of Crozant, he is today among the 5 most highly rated painters of this school alongside his friends: Guillaumin (his master), Detroy (his faithful friend), Madeline and Alfred Smith (family ties). Eugène Gilbert Alluaud was born on March 25, 1866 in Ribagnac (commune of Saint-Martin-Terressus) in a family of porcelain makers and art lovers. His great-grandfather François Alluaud (1739-1799) was a geographer to the king and a porcelain maker, his grandfather François Alluaud (1778-1866) developed the family business, his father Amédée (1826-1871) was one of the great leaders of Limousin cultural life under the Second Empire, close to Corot, his brother Charles Alluaud (1861-1949) became known as a renowned entomologist. His father Amédée, an enlightened art lover and collector, received Corot several times in his château in Ribagnac. A close friend of Adrien Dubouché, he supported the painters of Crozant. When he died, his friend and painter Charles Donzel gave the young Eugène advice on pictorial matters. Alluaud studied literature at the Jesuit college in Vaugirard and then science at the Lycée Condorcet. He completed his military service as a conditional recruit for one year in 1885-1886. It was on this occasion that he became friends with the painter Jules Adler. From 1886 to 1889, he was a student at the Académie Julian, in the studio of Bouguereau and that of Robert-Fleury, and traveled throughout Europe (England, Belgium and Italy) and North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia). He owed his major pictorial experience to Crozant. After an initial discovery in 1887, he returned there for a long time in 1891. With his wife Marcelle, he had the house "La Roca" built there, where they settled every summer from 1905. He gathered their artist friends around his table. Together they painted the landscapes of the Creuse Valley and enjoyed themselves in a joyful atmosphere. Two names emerge from this network of friendships: Maurice Rollinat (1846-1903), the poet from Fresselines, and Armand Guillaumin (1841-1927), co-founder of the Impressionist group, who introduced him to light and color. His painting was therefore strongly influenced by Impressionism "before managing to free itself from it in the 1920s, through a more constructive and synthetic style inspired by Cézanne". He exhibited regularly in galleries, in Limoges at Dalpayrat and in Paris at Durand-Ruel and Drouant. He regularly participated in the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne. During the 1900 Universal Exhibition, he decorated the "Palais de la Danse" and the Grandes Marques pavilion-restaurant. President of the jury of the painting section at the Salon d'Automne in 1928, he himself received the grand prize at the French Exhibition in Cairo in 1929. He will finally be a great draftsman of war sketches, as well as a ceramist. This oil/cardboard is in very good original condition, delivered in a modern gilded baguette. Work guaranteed authentic