Pair of coloured pencil and pastel drawings on paper
Probably views of the Paris region
Format: 55 x 40.8 cm
Trace of signature in the lower right-hand corner on one, the second signed and dated 1890 in the lower left-hand corner.
Note: pinholes along the edge, a blue mark in the upper left for the first one, a slight lack in the upper right for the second one. Overall in good condition.
Marie-Joseph Léon Clavel was a French landscape painter born in Paris in 1850 and died in the same city in 1923. He is better known under the name "IWILL", a nickname he took at the beginning of his career.
From 1875 onwards, Iwill exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français and later at the Salon de la Société des Beaux-Arts, of which he was one of the founders. He took part in numerous orientalist, watercolourist and pastelist exhibitions both in France and abroad. He was awarded several prizes at various world exhibitions. Member of the French Artists' Association in 1883, he obtained an honourable mention in 1884, and a silver medal in 1889 (Universal Exhibition). He was made Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1894 and received the bronze medal of the Universal Exhibition in 1900.
Iwill was a great traveller, he set up his easel on the outskirts of Paris as well as in Brittany, Normandy, Holland, Italy (especially Rome and Venice) and New Zealand.
The landscapes represented by Iwill are bathed in great gentleness and serenity, although the skies above them often express the instability of atmospheric phenomena.