Mother And Child Praying At Calvary By Lionel Floch, Henriot Factory, Brittany

Polychrome earthenware. Circa 1930.
Manufacture Henriot
Height : 39 cm
Lionel Floch(1895 - 1972);
Lionel Floch was an almost self-taught artist, trained from secondary school onwards by local artists, including ‘the master’ Théophile Deyrolles. A good pupil, Lionel Floch chose to pursue a career in administration as a registrar, without ever giving up painting. He was soon transferred to Pont-Croix, where a group of very active artists had formed the Pont-Croix School, bringing together American, Belgian and local painters. In 1930, they were joined by Jean Moulin, then sub-prefect of Châteaulin and an engraver in his spare time, as well as the composer Van Parys and the writer Max Jacob. In the 1950s, he was successively transferred to Grasse and Chinon, before retiring to Quimper in 1958, where he lived out his remaining years.
Lionel Floch produced and sold many of his works. He produced large-scale painted decors for: Senator Astor in his manor house in Kérazan, for the Pascal brothers' hotel in Quimper, and for the Renault garage car showroom in Quimper. He also tried his hand at ceramics at the Henriot earthenware factory from the end of the 30s, 
Lionel Floch owes these two characteristics to his training outside the academic world. He is in the verist tradition of Simon or Lemordant, but his personal style is in tune with Brittany's artistic landscape at a time of modernisation.