Return From Algerian Hunting By Edouard Doigneau

Style: French School circa 1930 Condition: Very good condition Technique: Watercolor and gouache on bistre paper Other: Signed lower left Size: 48/50 cm Size with frame: 76/77 cm Shipping France: 45 euros, other countries contact us Édouard Doigneau was born on September 27, 1865 in Nemours, in a family of rural and artisanal origin, renowned for its expertise in cutlery. For several generations, the Doigneau, a lineage with a curious and open mind, had enriched themselves through their work, where their artistic know-how found application. This is the reason why Edmond Doigneau, the painter's father, assured of living off his income, found the leisure to take an interest in history, archaeology and sculpture. Naturally, the young Édouard Doigneau was the privileged witness of his father's passions. He therefore became familiar from childhood with the world of art, that of animals and hunting that many crews practiced in the Fontainebleau forest. Édouard Doigneau would have liked to join the École des Beaux-Arts but his father was categorically opposed to it. Through his family, he was therefore forced to prepare for a prestigious competition: that of Polytechnique. He did brilliantly at school. Then promoted to second lieutenant of artillery, Doigneau was assigned to Orléans. There, occupying the leisure moments that life in the barracks left him, the young officer discreetly took up pencils and brushes again. He would never abandon them again. From this period date numerous sketches on the theme of military life, with the obligatory companion of men-at-arms: the horse. After his time in Orléans, Doigneau was assigned to Le Havre. The Normandy coast attracted and fascinated him. In 1895, at the age of 30, Lieutenant Doigneau resigned from the army. Turning his back on the provinces for good, the painter returned to the Paris of his twenties, in those feverish years when the capital, a melting pot of countless talents, shared its favours between the pompous painters, the impressionists and these new misunderstood and already famous artists: the nabis. Doigneau enrolled at the Robert Fleury painting academy. Initially destined for a military career, he entered the École Polytechnique in 1885. He dropped out in 1900 to devote himself to painting. He was a student of Jules Lefebvre and Tony Robert-Fleury at the Académie Julian in Paris, then he left for Fontainebleau, Brittany, the Camargue, on the banks of the Loire, then Spain and North Africa. However, he returned frequently to Paris, where he had a studio on Boulevard Berthier and frequented the Salons, exhibiting from 1908 to 1911 at the Galerie Georges Petit. Édouard Doigneau was a member of the Artistes Français, which he was not in competition with, and of the Aquarellistes, Orientalistes and Peintres de Chevaux. He won a gold medal for La ronde des bigoudènes at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1906. A draftsman, he sketched in his notebooks and painted picturesque scenes of Brittany, the Pays Bigouden in particular, as well as animal scenes in watercolor. A regionalist painter with classical training, he did not want to belong to any school or attach himself to any style. His works produced in Africa, however, connect him to the genre of orientalist painting. Museums: Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims. Compared during his lifetime to those of Lucien Simon or Jean-Julien Lemordant, the works of Édouard Doigneau remain confidential, admired by a still too restricted circle of amateurs.