Maurice Eliot
A pastel by Maurice Eliot depicting an elegant woman with a parasol in a wheat field, dated 1885. A highly impressionistic work in both subject and technique.
Pastel signed and dated 1885 lower left
Dimensions: 31 x 46.5 cm
With frame: 47 x 62 cm
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Maurice Eliot , a delicate painter faithful to Impressionist clarity.
Maurice Eliot’s depiction of an elegant woman in nature, protecting herself from the sun’s rays with a parasol, is one of the Impressionists’ favorite subjects. We can’t help but think of Claude Monet’s emblematic work.
Maurice Eliot, a talented pastellist.
Félix Fénéon, visiting the “Exposition des 33” (a society of French pastellists) in January 1889, had this to say about Maurice Eliot: “This pastellist chooses from among his pencils the clear, the lively, the tender, and his gaiety in handling them is manifest.
Our work bears witness to the delicacy and refinement of its nuanced coloring.
Biography
Charles Louis Maurice Eliot is a painter, pastellist, engraver, illustrator and drawing teacher.
Maurice Eliot was born in Paris to Claude Gabriel Eliot, a lumber merchant, and Marie Antoinette Bouret, a non-professional. Following the couple’s rapid separation, Maurice’s childhood was divided between Paris and Épinay-sous-Sénart, where his maternal grandfather Jean-Louis Bouret, mayor from 1860 to 1865, owned several properties.
He lived and worked in Paris, but remained loyal to Épinay-sous-Sénart, “which played a key role in his neo-Impressionist painting.
Thanks to a travel grant, he visited southern Europe and took part in the 1889 and 1900 Universal Exhibitions, winning a silver medal at each. He also exhibited at the Salon d’Automne (Louis Vauxcelles cited him as one of the outstanding artists at the 1905 Salon) and became a member of the Société des Artistes Français.
A recognized pastellist, he exhibited twice at the Galerie Georges Petit, in 1888 and 1889, at the “expositions des 33” pastellistes français, a society founded and chaired by Roger Ballu, and also including Charles Angrand, Jacques-Émile Blanche, Eugène Dauphin, Émile Friant, Thomas Alexander Harrison, Fernand Khnopff, Albert Lebourg, Ary Renan and Guillaume Van Strydonck.
In 1889, Maurice Eliot was elected to the board of the Société des pastellistes français, alongside Jean-Louis Forain and Jules Chéret, among others, to take part in its annual exhibitions.
In 1894, the French state purchased Maurice Eliot’s painting for the first time, and in 1897 Ambroise Vollard commissioned a color lithograph for L’Album d’estampes originales de la galerie Vollard. He joined the Société des peintres-lithographes in 1899.
In 1900, Maurice Eliot moved with his mother and sister to 37, rue de Clichy, where he lived until 1937, spending summers at the family home in Épinay-sous-Sénart.
In 1901, after teaching drawing in various Paris schools since the early 1890s, Maurice Eliot was appointed “maître de dessin” at the École polytechnique, where he taught until 1932.
In January 1908, he was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur, with Charles Léandre as his patron. In May 1909, he exhibited at Devambez, before being represented by the Parisian gallery Sagot-Le Garrec.
The 1930s was a period of hardship, with the successive disappearances of his mother Marie Antoinette in 1932, his old friend Charles Léandre in 1934, and his mentally ill sister Jeanne.
After her death in 1937, he moved permanently to 15, rue de in Épinay-sous-Sénart, where he died in August 1945.
Solo exhibitions
– Galerie Devambez, Paris, May 1909.
– Maurice Eliot retrospective, Musée Robert Dubois-Corneau, Brunoy, spring 1988.
– Héro et Léandre: Charles Léandre, Maurice Eliot – Souvenirs de jeunesse dans les ateliers de Montmartre; Musée Robert Dubois-Corneau, Brunoy, September 2001 – January 2002.
– 150 pastels by French and foreign pastel masters, La Ferme Ornée art and exhibition center, Yerres, April 18 to June 7, 2009.
– Tribute to Maurice Eliot, Maurice-Eliot cultural center, Épinay-sous-Sénart, November 2012.
Group exhibitions
– Salon des artistes français, Paris, from 1881.
– Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts, 1899.
– Salon d’Automne, Paris, 1905.
– Versailles Exhibition, Société des amis des arts de Seine-et-Oise, Musée de Versailles, June 1889.
– Les artistes membres de la “Société Moderne”, Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, February 1909.
– Salon de la Société des peintres lithographes, 1909[41].
– Peindre la banlieue de Corot à Vlaminck, 1850-1950, atelier Grognard, Rueil-Malmaison, December 2016 – January 2017; musée français de la carte à jouer, Issy-les-Moulineaux, April 2017.
Museums
France
– Abbeville, Boucher-de-Perthes museum: Interior scene.
– Auxerre, Musée Leblanc-Duvernoy: La chanson de l’eau.
– Béziers, Musée des beaux-arts: Hours of twilight.
– Brunoy, Robert Dubois-Corneau Museum:
– Lille, palais des beaux-arts: Burial of a young girl, 1888,
– Montgeron, Josèphe-Jacquiot Museum,
– Nîmes, Musée des beaux-arts: Hours of twilight, oil on canvas.
– Quimper, Musée des beaux-arts, Les faucheurs,
– Reims, Musée des beaux-arts, Jeune paysanne, pastel.
– Saint-Brieuc, Musée d’art et d’histoire: Le Faucheur,
– Saint-Denis de La Réunion, Musée Léon-Dierx :
– Sarlat-la-Canéda, town hall,
– Sedan, municipal museum, Baroness de Rothschild donation.
– Soissons, museum
– Strasbourg, museum of modern and contemporary art :
Paris
– Musée d’Orsay: The Sacred Heart of Montmartre, circa 1900
– Petit Palais: Au bal, 1908, lithograph.
Switzerland
– Basel, Kunstmuseum: Young woman at table
United States
– Washington, Smithsonian American Art Museum: La Parisienne en 1906, drawing, 1915
