Frederic Samuel Cordey

Portrait of a man, dated 1895
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
Dimensions: 41 x 33cm
With frame: 62 x 54 cm
Price: 7500 €

For this painting, the artist leaves the landscape to paint a portrait of a man. If he changes pictorial genre, he does not abandon his touch by which he made himself famous. A landscape painter from the 19th century free school of landscape, he made color vibrate by the juxtaposition of hatched touches. Here, his style serves his subject. It represents a man with a lively expression.

His eyes, drawn in one line, are framed by his square jaw, his elongated nose and his clear forehead. The painter adorns his subject with simple clothes: the idea is not to detail the fabric, but to dress it in shades of purple and plum. Once again, Frédéric Samuel Cordey asserts himself as a proponent of color and design.

Biography :

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 Ecole des Beaux-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”. Renoir also represented him in La Conversation, alongside the model, Marguerite Legrand, known as “Margot”, a painting that can be found in the National Museum in Stockholm.

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.

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 time , Paris, Robert Laffont, 1987

Museums:

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

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