Gard Léon (1901-1979) "the Waltz Of Brahms - Portrait Of Janine Andrade" Paris Violinist Japan Beethoven Vivaldi

GARD Léon (1901-1979)

"The Waltz of Brahms, Portrait of the violinist Janine Andrade, Paris 1943"

Oil on canvas,
Signed lower right,
Signed and titled on the back by the artist,
Inventory number of the artist's studio "35"

Provenance: Family of the artist,

Beautiful and rare portrait of the painter Léon Gard who represents the famous French violinist Janine Andrade playing, while posing, "The waltz of Brahms". This portrait was made by his friend Léon Gard in 1943 in Paris.
This work offers us a beautiful harmony in the colors. The background composed of large juxtaposed keys seems to move and vibrate to the sound of the instrument.

Janine Andrade (1918-1997) shows predisposition to the violin at the age of seven. In 1930, she won first prize at the Paris Conservatoire and had a solo career at the International before the Second World War, particularly in Japan.

Born in Tulle in Corrèze, the Gard family settled ten years later in Morigny near Etampes and then in Paris.
From the age of 12, Léon Gard shows his artistic predispositions by creating his charcoal portrait.
At 16, he copies old paintings for a play "Little Queen". He receives encouragement from the state and is proposed as member of the Salon d'Automne the following year.

In 1922, he entered the National School of Fine Arts in Paris, in the studio of the painter Ernest Laurent, but not supporting the theories of his teachers and the atmosphere that reigns in this school, he signed a contract with the Georges Chéron, an art dealer exhibiting Soutine, Foujita and Van Dongen. His friend and patron, Louis Metman, director of the Museum of Decorative Arts, then allocates a pension for him to paint in Toulon. The economic crisis of 1931 forced the painter to find a job in a painting restoration workshop which he became the boss. At the same time, he continues to send his works to the Salon de la Nationale and to exhibit at Galerie Charpentier and Bernheim in Paris.
Thanks to his job, he becomes friends with Sacha Guitry.

In 1946, Léon Gard founded the Apollo art magazine and began a crusade against non-figurative painting. In order to leave the Parisian tumult, the artist goes to stay several times at the castle of Bonshommes in the forest of Isle Adam and will take pleasure in representing the Bonshommes Park according to the vagaries of time and seasons.
Léon Gard is a great colourist who strives to represent what he sees accurately in compositions where he sometimes expresses his love for the precise outline, the detail, the weight of things; at other times, in a wider way, he abandons himself to his love of the atmosphere and the colorful vibrations; finally, he tries on a few occasions to melt these two almost irreconcilable problems into one in the same work.

For more information on the artist, we can refer to the website dedicated to the painter: www.leongard.fr

Size: 65 x 54 cm without frame and 88 x 77 cm with its montparnasse wooden frame.

A catalog on the painter Léon Gard (1901-1979) and a certificate of the right holder will be given to the purchaser

For more information, contact us.