Marcel-lenoir (1872-1931), Jules Oury Dit, Study Of Hands, Ink On Paper

Marcel-lenoir (1872-1931), Jules Oury known as
Étude de mains
Ink on paper
Signed "Marcel-Lenoir" lower right
19.5 x 34 cm
Antique wooden frame 39 × 48 cm

Originally from Montauban, Jules Oury, who would later adopt the pseudonym Marcel-Lenoir, moved to Paris in 1889, at the age of seventeen. Strongly encouraged by his goldsmith father to develop his artistic talents, he undertook a brief training at the École des Arts Décoratifs and then at the École des Beaux-Arts. He quickly turned away from goldsmithing to concentrate on painting. The art of the French and Italian primitives that he discovered at the Louvre would have a profound effect on him. A great fan of Pierre Puvis de Chavanne, from whom he received encouragement, he was naturally drawn to the symbolist nebula and more particularly to the esoteric world of the Rose+Croix.

A hard worker with an innate talent for color and composition, Marcel-Lenoir produced a fertile body of work that was constantly evolving. He made several stylistic shifts, always in a modern and poetic aesthetic, and thus achieved a formidable synthesis of the pictorial innovations of his time. Remaining faithful to massive forms and bright colors, he was interested in a variety of subjects, both secular and mystical, and participated in the revival of religious painting in the aftermath of the First World War.

A tormented artist marked by spiritual uncertainties, Marcel-Lenoir was above all profoundly independent. His fierce condemnations of bourgeois art and official institutions would harm his critical fortune.