Pierre Tal Coat (1905-1985), Portrait Supposedly Of Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), Circa 1930

Pierre Tal Coat (1905-1985)
Supposed portrait of Gertrude Stein (1874-1946), circa 1930
Pencil on paper
Signed lower right Numbered “962” on the back
21 x 18 cm

Son of a Breton fisherman, Pierre Louis Jacob, known as Pierre Tal Coat since 1926, was born in Clohars-Carnoët (Finistère) in 1905. He began drawing in 1918 when he was an apprentice blacksmith. First a ceramic painter at the Quimper earthenware factory in 1924, he drew in pencil, charcoal and pastel on the theme of the Breton countryside. He settled in Paris the same year and regularly visited Brittany. He became friends with, among others, Gertrude Stein, Francis Picabia, Tristan Tzara and Antonin Artaud.

From 1935, he was a member of the Forces Nouvelles group alongside artists such as Georges Rohner, André Marchand, Robert Humblot and Jean Lasne. In 1941, he took part in the founding exhibition Twenty Young Painters of French Tradition organized by Jean Bazaine at the Braun Gallery in Paris.

During the Second World War, he took up residence in Provence, at the foot of the Sainte-Geneviève mountain, before returning to Paris and the Montparnasse district. In 1947, the artist took part in the exhibition Painting in France 1939-1946 at the Whitney Museum in New York, where his works were noticed by the American art critic Clément Greenberg. The artist gradually moved away from the motif. He joined the Maeght gallery in 1954 before moving to a large studio in Eure, where his painting underwent a transformation from 1960 onwards. A major retrospective of his work was organised at the Grand Palais in 1976.

In the 1930s, Pierre Tal-Coat painted numerous portraits of his close friends.