Jean Cluseau-lanauve (1914-1997) The New Streets In Périgueux Dordogne

Jean CLUSEAU-LANAUVE
(Périgueux 1914 - Paris 1997)
The New Streets in Périgueux
Watercolor
H. 380 mm; L. 480 mm
Located and dated lower left, workshop stamp lower right.

Provenance: Workshop of the artist

Jean Cluseau-Lanauve was born in 1914 in Périgueux into a family from the department. It is here that he “meets” the arts, pushed by his parents in this direction, before leaving to study them in Paris where he will settle. He entered in 1933, only to leave shortly before the war, during which he was also taken prisoner in Germany. A formation of lithographer and draftsman will trace his beginnings of career, to become in the years 50 to 80, a figure recognized as well by his contemporary artists, as by a fervent clientele. Although the head of a girl in the post-war Paris school, Cluseau-Lanauve did not forsake his native Périgord. There he owns a house near Les Eyzies where he sets up a small workshop giving him a view of the colors of this land he loves so much. His first painting presented at the Salon des Artistes Français, in 1935, is a Landscape of Périgord. It will also be bought by the State. This dear Périgord, Cluseau-Lanauve replaces it permanently in his works, which he realizes from sketches taken from the motif. Many notebooks of these sketches have been scattered since his death and are found today on the art market, sheet by sheet. His oils, which became cubists in the 1950s, are images with clean lines that seek only to bring out the idealized subject, in luminous facets.

This watercolor carried out on site in Périgueux is certainly to be located under the Saint Front cathedral at the level of the old Place de la Mission. This district of the Rues Neuves which bordered the Isle was a very poor area which was destroyed during the years 50/70 to be replaced by modern buildings ... Period photographs are the most important testimonies of this disappeared place, but of many artists have produced outstanding works there. Here Cluseau-Lanauve describes with his palette and his brush typical of his early period, a quiet town with brown hues.