Brown Stone

View of Toulouse-Boats-Lavoirs, Dated 1912
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right, located and titled on the back
Dimensions: 50 x 61cm
With frame: 66.5 x 77.5 cm
sold

In this early work, the artist sets up his easel on the left bank of the Garonne in Toulouse, and gives us a view of the laundry boats moored on the banks. In the distance, we can see the bell tower of the Notre Dame de la Dalbade church, a real visual landmark, at the time the highest bell tower in the city, now non-existent following its collapse in 1926.

The banks of the Garonne, an inseparable place from the city, are linked to pre-industrial craftsmanship but also designed as a leisure space where festivities take place. Many painters have represented the banks of the city with its washerwomen or walkers. Here no characters, a sober and uncluttered architectural view. The work is synthetic and pure, painted in large areas of material.

To represent “the pink city” a pretty palette is essential; from deep burgundy to purple passing through more intense pinks and old pinks associated with the blue and gray white of the clouds of the eventful sky.

Pierre Boulaine dit Pierre Brune paints landscapes, still lifes and some portraits. Born into a family of the merchant bourgeoisie, he was destined to take up his father’s trade: commercial traveler and cloth merchant.

From the age of twenty, he traveled to the South of France, meeting the painters Lenoir and Lucien Andrieu.

A self-taught artist, he exhibited his work for the first time in 1910, on the advice of the circle of painters around him.

From 1913, he presented Galerie Druet, urban views, well-constructed still lifes, with refined tones in halftone.

On the eve of the First World War, he took part in the creative emulation of the Art Vivant group. In 1916, he moved to Céret where he painted large landscapes of Roussillon. Encouraged by Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris who were residents there between 1911 and 1913, he created a museum of modern art there and took up the post of curator. He receives donations from Matisse, Chagall, Maillol, Manolo, Masson and many others.

Bibliography:

. art. “Pierre Brune”, Bénézit, Oxford Art Online, 2011

Museums:

. Paris: Center Pompidou – National Museum of Modern Art, Modern Art Museum of the city of Céret

Exhibitions :

. Last exhibition: “Pierre Brune”, modern art museum of the city of Céret, Céret, December 3, 2016 – March 5, 2017.