George Le Febvre (1861-1912) - The Manor Of La Boderie, 1907 - Exhibited At The 1907 Salon, Paris

George Le Febvre (1861-1912)
Le Manoir de la Boderie, 1907
Oil on canvas
62 x 90.5 cm
75 x 103 (with frame)
Signed and date lower right Exhibited at the 1907 Salon

Georges Le Febvre was born in Berjou on October 14, 1861 and died in 1912. He began his artistic education with drawing lessons with Xénophon Hellouin at the municipal school of Caen and exhibited for the first time in the city in 1883. Thereafter, he left the North for Paris and enters under the apprenticeship of the painter Luc-Olivier Merson. However, he did not settle entirely in Paris but spent a good part of the year in Brittany, between Cancale and Saint-Malo, where he executed a large number of clear and colorful studies. Following the tragic death of his wife, Georges Le Febvre returns to his native village and begins to paint a series of large austere scenes, in which sadness, mystery and melancholy mingle. He gradually emerged from this depressive state thanks to the support of his friend Georges Moteley, a landscape painter, who convinced him to return to Paris. There, he began to take courses at the Académie Julian and entered Jules Lebevre's studio, which marked the true beginning of his artistic career. From 1896 until his death in 1912, the painter exhibited Norman landscapes at the Salon des Artistes Français. In 1900 he won a medal of merit and, in 1903, a third class medal. His short and separated brushstrokes make him similar to the post-impressionist and this style brings him closer to his friend, the painter Henri Martin, adept at a divisionist brushstroke and light tones.