Leon DETROY
The yellow bouquet
Oil on canvas Signed lower right Dimensions: 65 x 46 cm With frame: 80 x 61 cm
On the back two old exhibition labels : –“Galerie Michel Boutin Galerie Saint Honoré Paris”. –“Galerie Denise Valtat Rue de la Boetie Paris”.
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Léon Detroy initially endeavored to reproduce landscapes with rich nuances, but still lifes will gradually establish themselves as a major aspect of his work. The painter represents a colorful bouquet, which gives a vibrant, luminous and cheerful air. Pretty color harmonies testify to the painter’s qualities as a colorist. It was his vision of a happy art to which he aspired. Biography: Born into a cultured bourgeois family, Léon Detroy entered Jean Paul Laurens’ studio at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the age of 21. This sensitive artist was very early attracted by landscapes. He settled as soon as he left the Parisian Beaux-Arts in the Creuse valley, where landscape painters were already flourishing, including Monet, who became his friend. He shares with Armand Guillaumin the title of master of Crozant. A little younger than the great Impressionists, he benefited from the path opened up by Monet, Pissaro, Sisley. Nevertheless, Léon Detroy is freed from all influences, he forges an uncompromising personal style and his greatest successes owe their power to his audacious and singular technique. He seeks the explosive mixture of divided brushstrokes and monochrome tints. He was always faithful to the Creuse valley with its changing landscapes with rich nuances. This anchorage serves as a refuge for him between his many trips from Northern Europe to Northern Africa via Italy, and in France, from the South to Brittany. He was highly appreciated by critics but also by his fellow painters and friends, Vuillard, Bonnard, Friez and Anquetin. He knew how to move away from impressionism to develop a personal aesthetic, a subtle balance of audacity and moderation. Having as little need for glory as for money, Léon Detroy always kept away from the commercial circuit and too few shipments to Salons and personal exhibitions resulted in a poor representation of the painter in museums. A catalog raisonné and a book on the artist are currently in preparation. Museums : – Musée des beaux-arts de Chateauroux Bibliography : – Bénézit – Dictionnaire des petits maîtres de la peinture by Gérald Schurr and Pierre Cabanne – L’École de Crozant, les peintres de La Creuse et de Gargilesse by Christophe Ramex
