Yves Brayer (1907-1990) Portrait Of éliane

Large painting in oil on canvas circa 1950 signed lower left by Yves BRAYER (1907-1990) depicting the presumed portrait of Madame Éliane Petit de la Villéon. Period frame in gilded wood, original canvas on good frame with keys. Dimensions: 63 cm X 54 cm / at sight: 46 cm x 38 cm. Yves Brayer cannot be cataloged in a single section, so rich and diverse is his work. The artist first devotes himself to painting natural landscapes by magnifying Provence, with its olive trees of a deep green and its Alpilles of a sometimes dazzling white, sometimes speckled with dark green. It then represents Parisian life, for example with a lodge scene at the Opera where a gloved woman wearing delicate finery is leaning on her elbows. His many travels were also an inexhaustible source of inspiration for him: in Rome, he painted the frantic waltz of a ball at the Palazzo Farnese in Venice as well as the new bridge, always in a fi gurative style. In Morocco, he immortalizes Spahis, a colorful traditional cavalry corps. The Yves Brayer Museum endeavors to show the plurality of the painter's work, mainly known for his abundant production of landscapes, of great poetry. We rediscover his nude drawings and portraits of his beloved wife Hermione, both his muse, his model and his assistant. Painter witness of his time, Yves Brayer revealed himself as one of the masters of the School of Paris. The theater, literature, the landscapes of the Camargue or Baux de Provence and his travels were sources of continuous inspiration. Representative of the movement of figurative art, he founded "a sincere classicism", recognized by the Academy of Fine Arts which welcomed him in 1957 as a member of the Institute.