Frederic Cordey

Resting on the banks of the Oise at Saint-Ouen-l’Aumône, 1892
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated, lower right
Dimensions: 46 x 55cm
With frame: 71 x 78 cm
Price: 7500 €

Frédéric Samuel Cordey evolves with the Impressionists, he presents four paintings with the group for the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1877.

Pupil of Isodor Pils and Gustave Boulanger at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, he was part of the group (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley) who rebelled against academic teaching to follow the path of Impressionism. .

The artist took part in the Salon d’Automne in 1903. He rarely exhibits and art critics are rave about him. A retrospective exhibition took place at the Galerie Choiseul in Paris in 1913. His wealth allows him to work according to his own aspirations without depending on criticism and help from merchants.

Appreciated by Gustave Caillebotte and particularly linked to Auguste Renoir, he is featured in several paintings by the artist, including the “Bal du moulin de la galette”. Attentive landscape painter, he likes to depict the surrounding nature; If the Auxerre countryside is one of the painter’s favorite places, he stays not far from Camille Pissarro in Neuville-sur-Oise as well as in Eragny-sur-Oise.

For this painting, the artist depicts a rural landscape whose encounter between man and nature brings out the calm and tranquility of an afternoon in the countryside. The scene is picturesque par excellence; the church of Auvers-sur-Oise, which stands out in the background of the landscape, was made famous by the eponymous painting by Van Gogh which predates that of Cordey by two years.

In this painting from 1892, the painter breaks away from Renoir’s Impressionism. A landscape painter from the magnificent 19th century free school of landscape, he makes color vibrate by the juxtaposition of hatched touches.

Bibliography:

• Article by Adolphe Thalasso, “Exposition F.-S. Cordey”, in L’Art et les artistes , monthly review of ancient and modern art , Oct. 1913-3 Feb. 1914, p. 237

• André Roussard, Dictionary of painters in Montmartre in the 19th and 20th centuries

• Cat. of exp. Christophe Duvivier, Painters and the Oise, the painter-engravers of the Oise Valley , [exhibition “ Painters and the Oise, the painter-engravers of the Oise Valley”, Pontoise, Musée Tavet- Delacour, 26 Feb. to 23 Sept. 2007], Pontoise ed. from the museum, 2007

• Sophie Monneret, Impressionism and its era , Paris, Robert Laffont, 1987

Museums:

• Madame Cordey doing tapestry , 1879, Paris, Musee d’Orsay

• Dish of peaches, 1906, Nevers, prefecture of Nièvre