Bernard Buffet achieved worldwide renown and is considered one of France’s most important painters of the twentieth century.

Bernard Buffet was born on July 10, 1928 in France. In 1944, he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts, but he soon left the school to work on his own, and quickly affirmed his own exceptional personality.

He had his first exposition at the Salon des Moins de Trente Ans, (The Salon for Those Under Thirty) in 1946. In 1947, Buffet met Dr. Maurice Girardin, who became his first important collector. At his death, Dr. Girardin donated his collection to the Petit Palais Museum in Paris.  Buffet also exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d’Automne.

In 1948, Buffet won the Prix de la Critique, and he had given at least one important exposition each year, until shortly before his death.

In 1955, he received the first prize in a referendum conducted by the Review “Connaissance des Arts”, and was designated first out of ten best painters of the post World War II era.

In the 1950s, Bernard Buffet was considered the principal figurative artist in Paris. During this period, he was influenced by the miserabilisme movement: his compositions, all grays and dull whites, had a somber mood. Buffet’s subjects have tremendous range, especially in later works, and include still-lifes, interior scenes, and views of such cities as New York, Paris, and London.

During this time Buffet had several important one-man shows in Paris at the Drousant-David Galeries and the David et Garnier Galeries, where the following paintings received particular acclaim: La Passion (1952), Horreur de la Guerre (1954), Le Cirque (1956), Paysages de Paris (1957), and Jeanne d’Arc (1958).   In 1958 the Galerie Charpentier staged a retrospective show called Cent Tableaux of the paintings which had brought Buffet such outstanding success in the brief period since the end of World War II.

He designed the sets for two ballets – one of them Rende-vous Manqué by Françoise Sagan in 1958. He illustrated several books, including Jean Cocteau’s La Voix Humaine and La Passion.

Bernard Buffet was honored with the Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur in 1971. In 1973, the Musée Bernard Buffet was opened in Surugdaira, Japan.  In 1974, Buffet was elected to the Académie des Beaux Arts. In 1978, a Three Franc Stamp was issued by the French Government and is entitled “Le Pont des Arts” It was realized from a model designed especially by Buffet.

Buffet’s paintings for the Chapel of Chateau d’Arc representing scenes from the life of Christ are permanently exhibited in the Modern Art Galleries of the Vatican Museum. Japan and Germany dedicated monoraphical museums to his work.

Buffet is represented in the Musée d’Art Moderne and the Petit Palais in Paris.  He is also represented in the Museums of Grenoble and Lille, and in many foreign museums and private collections.

Bernard Buffet committed suicide on October 4, 1999.

Like Picasso, Matisse, and Chagall, Paul Aizpiri belongs to the special category of “Mediterranean Artist,” painters whose works seem to glow with the sun of Southern Europe. Perhaps, with a mother from Italy and a father from the Spanish Basque country, the French-born Aizpiri was destined to view the world in brilliant shades of azure, carmine and gold. His busy, breathless brushwork and bright colored palette, summon up Riviera promenades, Venetian canals, circus performers, and bouquets of exotic blossoms, pulsing with energy and a relentless joie de vivre.

Aizpiri’s canvases are part Impressionist, part Expressionist, part Cubist, but always figurative. They are easily accessible and enormously popular. Some art critics contend they are beautiful surfaces with little depth. But there is a darker, deeper side to Aizpiri’s work, rooted in his life experience.

Born in Paris in 1919 with a Basque background, Paul Aizpiri studied painting at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Public acknowledgement of his talent began in the 1940’s and progressed from many exhibitions held in various countries around the world. He won the National Grand Prix at the Venice Biennale in 1951.

Aizpiri’s passion for nature and families are self-evident within his artworks. The bold brushstrokes and bright colored palette in his fantastical figurative paintings are symbols of his joy and happiness in life. His works are painted poetry filled with a glow of love with such motifs as children, bicycles, airplanes, birds, fish and the sun, flying over the skies of Paris, Saint Tropez and Venice.

Gaston Lachaise was born in Paris in 1882. He entered the École Bernard Palissy at the age of 13 to study sculpture, completed the four-year program in three years, and enrolled at L’Academie Nationale des Beaux-Arts at the age of 16. For someone quite young, Lachaise enjoyed unusual successes, among them four acceptances to the Salon des Artists Françaises and ranking among the top twenty candidates in the competition for the Prix de Rome—all before the age of 21. But in 1905, Lachaise gave up his pursuit of academic honors to follow his great love, a Canadian-American woman, Isabel Dutaud Nagle, to America.

After first settling in Boston for several years, in 1912 Lachaise moved permanently to New York, where he was an assistant to Paul Manship, a modernist sculptor. Lachaise abandoned his previous academic style and found his way to modernism through Manship. Although he made many portrait busts, he was best known for his standing nude female figures, always robust despite their small size. One figure was included in the Armory Show of 1913. Lachaise modeled his figures in clay or plasticene, preserved them in plaster, and set them aside for later casting in bronze. These early female figures are romantic and introspective, but full-bodied, prideful, and voluptuous. His sculpture is extremely refined, composed of generously proportioned, smoothly shaped forms that flow into each other, emphasizing their graceful contours.

Lachaise belonged to the generation of Picasso, Braque and Brancusi, who had revolutionized European art. In the United States, he counted among his friends the leaders of American modernism, artists such as Joseph Stella, John Sloan, John Marin, Marsden Hartley, Georgia O’Keeffe, and Alfred Stieglitz, as well as the poets Hart Crane and E.E. Cummings. Lachaise served on the Independent Artists board with Robert Henri, Marcel Duchamp, and Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney. Despite his regard for these creative leaders, Lachaise always stood apart, committed to his own deeply personal vision.

Lachaise exhibited at Alfred Stieglitz’s Intimate Gallery in 1927; and was given a retrospective—the first for a living sculptor—at the Museum of Modern Art in 1935. He was working towards a second retrospective with the Philadelphia Art Alliance, and on a project for Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park Assembly, when he died of leukemia at the age of 53.

Findlay Galleries has been the exclusive representation of the Lachaise Foundation since 2015.

Born Eugene Paul, Gen Paul was born in a house in Montmartre on July 2, 1895. The painter and engraver began his artistic career at a young age, drawing and painting often as a child. However, when his father died in 1910, Paul was forced to find work to support himself and his family. Luckily, the young Paul found a job working on decorative furnishings, and was able to continue to be creative and artistic. At the outbreak of World War I Paul joined the French army, and was subsequently wounded, losing a leg. It was only then, during his recovery, that Paul turned back to the love of his childhood – painting.

Gen Paul found himself constantly inspired by his surroundings. At the time of his youth, Montmartre was a hub of creativity, luring talented painters, writers, poets, and musicians from all over the world. Gen Paul was able to interact with and befriend many of the avant-garde painters of his time, including Juan Gris, Utrillo, and Vlaminck. He befriended artist Jean Dufy, and the two often inspired and challenged each other to create newer, better work. Against this heavily artistic backdrop, Paul began to develop his own signature style, a dynamic new form of expressionism.

Fascinated with jazz, Paul traveled through the U.S., from New York to New Orleans and on to California, discovering subjects that begin to appear in his paintings. His style broadened, and he began to solidify his place in the art world. Through his use of gestural brushstrokes, Paul created inherent motion within his works, leading many art historians to name him the first action painter and a precursor to the abstract expressionists of the 1950s. Even his later works, made during a period of heavy alcoholism, feature a rhythm within the strokes that makes them easily identifiable as Gen Paul pieces.

Gen Paul never received any formal training, yet he was able to make a living from his art for almost 60 years, even achieving such honors as being awarded the Legion of Honor in 1934. Only in 1964, at the age of 69, did Paul stopping painting. He could not, however, keep himself from creating in some way, and continued to draw and produce lithographs until his death in 1972.

Born into a family in which the arts were held in the highest honor, Martin-Ferrieres did not draw attention to the fact that he was the son of Henri Martin in order that his success might be solely due to his own merits.  He had the most profound veneration for the talent and work of his father and fully acknowledged the debt he owed for the lessons he received from him, but he felt that notoriety had only a pecuniary value, of which he had a horror, for only too often notoriety had no relation to real talent.

Martin-Ferrieres at first hesitated to devote himself completely to painting, fearing he would be faced
with unfavorable criticism as “the son of …” which is quite understandable because many sons carry on the same profession as their fathers, influenced by ease and the established reputation of the father. In addition, Martin-Ferrieres feared he might be mistaken about his true vocation, mistrusting that precocious skill which brings rapid but ephemeral recognition.  He need not have worried, since his artistic career was fruitful and marked by success.

The education Martin-Ferrieres received was very thorough.  From the age of six onwards, he drew and was always attracted to painting, but he studied both literature and the sciences and received his degree in science.  These advanced scientific studies proved to be of value when he turned entirely to painting, for he had a strong knowledge of chemistry as applied to painting techniques.  He was a fervent musician and played the piano, organ and cello.  For him music was food, and the ideal respite after long hours of work at his easel.

It was in 1923 that Marin-Ferrieres received his first major honor.  In the 1920 Paris Salon he had received an Honorable Mention, and in 1923 in the same Salon after his painting “Le Christ” was awarded the Silver Medal, it was purchased by the French State.  In 1924 another canvas, “Le Boeuf”, won him a traveling grant which enabled him to discover Italy and its artistic wealth.  When he returned to France after that trip, he had his first one-man exhibition.  In 1925 he was awarded the Prix National for his important composition “Le Peintre”, which was later exhibited at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh.  In the three-year period 1925-1928, Martin-Ferrieres made several visits to Italy to make a close study of the Italian masters.  In 1928 his remarkable “Marche d’Assissi” was awarded both the Gold Medal of the Paris Salon and the Prix Legay-Lebrun and was then purchased by the City of Paris.  From that point on, the critics were unanimous in acknowledging his talent.

In 1930 the French State purchased one of his paintings for the Musee d’Art Moderne.  From 1928 to 1933, Martin-Ferrieres devoted himself entirely to the execution of the powerful, sumptuous frescoes of the life of St. Christopher in the church of Saint Christopher de Javel in Paris.  Other large scale decorations followed on both religious and secular themes.

It was in 1933 that Jacques Martin-Ferrieres went to Spain for six months and there vitalized and lightened his palette, which up to that time had been consciously toned done.  A visit to Greece followed, where he was dazzled by the magnificent pink light, and then one to Yugoslavia, which drew out his innate delight in the spectacle offered by crowds.  In 1937 he won the Gold Medal at the Exposition Universelle, and in 1939 he had a large retrospective exhibition in Paris consisting of more that one hundred and fifty canvases and studies resulting from his journeys and showing the range and diversity of his talent.

The war years interrupted his painting.  Martin-Ferrieres took part in the work of the Resistance in Dordogne.  He was captured by the Germans and sentenced to be shot.  His life was spared, but it was nearly 1950 before he again began painting and traveling.  He went back to Italy and especially to his beloved Venice, which had already inspired many of his finest canvases; to Portugal, Switzerland, Belgium. Holland, Germany, Scandinavia and to Russia, drawing and painting everywhere he went.  Travel was an integral part of the inspiration of Martin-Ferrieres, and he never ceased to find new subjects for his brush in the various countries which he visited.

In addition to the honors and awards received in the Salons, Martin-Ferrieres was honored by his country.  He was made an Officer of the Legion of Honor in 1956, having previously been named a Chevalier of the Legion in 1937.

Jacques Martin-Ferrieres was an artist whose interest in human beings and life around him became keener with the years.  He was a man brimming with life who extracted the artistic essence from everything he experienced.  He was a well-rounded artist, who produced striking portraits, landscapes, still lifes and monumental mural frescos and decorations.  His work is characterized by technical skill, solidity of drawing and superb sensitivity to color.  His palette was originally quiet but shifted to fresher and warmer colors used with restraint and with an appreciation of shades and their complexity.  Whether he painted figures, florals or landscape paintings, all express the same joy of life in the veritable feast of light and color.

Eugène Lavieille is an important figure of the Barbizon School who, along with Chintreuil, is one of the best landscape painters ever trained by Corot. As an apprentice he studied drawing with Lequin, and in 1841 he became a student of Corot himself, exhibiting for the first time three years later at the Paris Salon. His phenomenal success allowed him to devote himself fully to developing his unique style. Lavielle subsequently became a pivotal figure in the Barbizon School, creating an array of important canvases with his characteristic fluid touch, masterly treatment of tones, and calm, nostalgic atmosphere. His work was well received by the art world, and was awarded medals at the Paris Salons of 1849, 1864, and 1870.

Pierre Hodé was born on January 3, 1889 in Rouen.

Beginning to paint with 14 years of age, he exhibit very young at the Société Normande de Peinture Moderne, at the side of Pierre Dumont, La Fresnay, Marcel Duchamp, Jacques Villon and, one year later, will take an active role in this organization.

Settled in Paris in 1915, he will be companion of atelier of Picasso at the Bateau-Lavoir. After the war, he will divide his time between Paris and Normandy, and will die in 1942 after a long disease.

In the work of Pierre Hodé we can distinguish three essential periods.

The period of formation inspired by the post-impressionism and the Fauvism.

His cubist period at the time of his stay at the Bateau-Lavoir where the influence of great Masters such as Picasso and Juan Gris is obvious without being an imitation.

The last period, from 1921, where the artist having synthesized his various pictorial attempts, will tend to purify and will keep only the essential, without losing himself in the intellectual correctness of the elements of a dislocated reality.

Today there are many painters who have discovered the fascination of painting familiar landmarks of Paris…the intriguing street cafes with their brilliant lights glowing in the rain, the flower stands by the Madeleine and the reflection of people and lights on wet Paris pavements.

In the nineteenth century, however, there was one fine painter who pioneered in this field and who demonstrated by his superbly handled watercolors how limitless the lure of Paris can be to a painter.  He was Eugéne Galien-Laloue, now called the “Grandpère” of today’s Paris street scene painters.  Since that time, though many have followed his example subject-wise, none have approached the very special subtlety and beauty of Laloue’s work.

Laloue was first of all an architect.  His youthful training had been on the drafting board and his discipline had been one of precision workmanship in planning exact measurements and finite surface detail.

As a student, Laloue had been most enthusiastic in delving into the history of architecture and found tremendous pleasure in comparing and analyzing the historical developments of the architectural designs and the forces which shaped various periods, as well as in the linear precision of drafting board work.  However, as time went on he found that building was not his field.  In spite of his love of drawing up plans and designing exteriors, the business and promotion angles of the profession held no interest for him.  He was still a young man when he came to the decision that he would never be completely happy or successful in a permanent career as an architect.

With his interest in linear forms, it was only a natural sequence for Laloue to turn from the drafting board to experimentation with engraving and other media of the graphic arts.  In this field he was able to combine his knowledge and appreciation of architecture with his great feeling for line work.  Both as an illustrator and engraver, he achieved a considerable reputation in Paris.  However, Laloue reached his full statue as an artist in the field of watercolor and gouache, where he could combine all of his many-faceted skills.  In this he developed a style uniquely his own.

His line work is unbelievably delicate and sensitive and yet gives great substance to the forms of both his buildings and figures.  At first glance his color is softly muted, yet it is rich in tonal quality.  He is at once able to combine the beauty of design and color pattern with a strong atmosphere of mood and reality.

His subjects are developed with infinite attention to detail, yet give the impression of spontaneity and easy flowing execution.  In studying his work one marvels at the tremendous craftsmanship he developed in watercolor without in any way losing the inspiration, artistry and creative spirit without which such paintings would become coldly mechanical masterpieces.

As both an engraver and painter in watercolor, Laloue was closely associated with the Artistes Français and was continually invited to be represented in their exhibitions.  Also numerous examples of his work were included in the Salon shows, especially during the later years of his life when his reputation had been firmly established.

Laloue, as his work itself would indicate, was far from a prolific painter.  His objective was jewel-like
perfection.  This, combined with great enthusiasm among collectors for his work, meant that his paintings quickly disappeared from the market and today are even more rarely found.

According to the very limited details available on his personal life, Laloue was all his life a Parisian.  He was born in Paris and his work was the dominating interest of his life.  At the time of his death, he had seen little of the outside world and lived in virtual retirement, but his reputation among collectors traveled infinitely further and his influence on twentieth century painters has been extensive.

On those infrequent occasions when one has an opportunity to study his work, one marvels at the great beauty, the very special qualities of perfection and animation, which Laloue achieved in watercolor.  Each example of his work is an absorbing study complete in itself in which one continually discovers new details of sheer loveliness to enjoy.

Eugene Clary was born in Paris in 1856 and was a protégé of C. de Cook.  At 27 years of age, after studying art for several years, he began exhibiting at the Salon in 1878. At this time, his works consisted of mostly landscapes painted on the banks of the Seine, in the Eure valley, and in Normandy. These paintings would lay the foundation for one of his more frequent themes – trees reflecting in the waters of rivers.

In 1890, Clary entered the Societe Nationale, later becoming a member and receiving a gold medal for his work. His success continued, as he obtained a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1900, and participated in the exhibitions of the Nationale des Beaux-Arts.

By 1908, at the age of 52, Clary’s sight began to deteriorate. In 1926, having gone completely blind, he died in Les Andelys.

His works mostly feature the edges of the Seine, which he approached with his own personal charm. Paintings by Clary are present in many prominent collections, including the Museum of Louviers, which owns three of his landscapes.

Jean Chaleyé’s long life was devoted to art even from his earliest years.  He was born in 1878 in Saint-Etienne and spent much of his childhood with a grandfather who forged and did sculptures at Trébuche where Chaleyé painted his first landscapes.  He also attended the regional school of Industrial Arts of Saint-Etienne.  In 1896, Chaleyé won a scholarship to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Lyon and entered the floral class.  The silk industry of Lyon used many floral motifs and looked to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts as a source for them.  Chaleyé changed and lightened these motifs, winning a gold medal from the school and a scholarship from the City of Lyon which permitted him to go to Paris to complete his formation.

In 1899, Chaleyé entered the Ecole National Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs of Paris, becoming such a brilliant student that he was made the massier or student in charge by the director, Louvrier de Lajolais.  The following year Chaleyé entered the Ecole National Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in the atelier of Cormon to continue his interest in painting.  He met Cassatt, Dunoyer de Ségonzac and Dérain and spent much time painting in the gardens of the Luxembourg.

The year 1903 brought a change in Chaleyé’s life.  He moved to Puy to create designs for lace and did this work for three years, introducing motifs different from the geometric patterns which, until then, had dominated the lace industry of the Haute-Loire.  His work was so revolutionary and so successful that it was exhibited in 1904 at the Musée Galliéra of Paris; in 1905 at the International  Exhibition in Liège;  he won a prize in 1907 in a national  French competition;  the gold medal of the Brussels International Exhibition; a gold medal in 1911 at the Turin International Exhibition.  His designs for lace are now in the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, in various provincial museums and the Musée de Saint-Gall in Switzerland.

In 1912, Chaleyé married and moved to Espaly.  He resumed painting full time, intending to exhibit his paintings in Paris in 1914, but the war and his military service intervened.  By 1918, he was back in civilian life and devoting his energies to painting.  In Paris he had met a number of the Barbizon painters, and he had been dazzled by the armfuls of flowers that Manet, though ill and immobilized in his garden at Rueil, painted in perfumed sheaves.  Though Chaleyé had long done landscapes and figure paintings, he now made floral still lifes his specialty.  He brought to them rich color and lyricism, communicating his own spirited admiration for floral motifs and rendering them light, transparent, sumptuous and moving.  They mark the height of his powers as a painter.

In 1931, Chaleyé was made director of the Roubaix Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts as well as Conservator of the Musée de Roubaix.  He remained director of the Roubaix Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts until he retired in 1939.  In 1937, he was made an Officer of the Légion d’Honneur.

Jean Chaleyé died in 1960.  After his death, the house in which he had lived in Puy was turned into the Musée Chaleyé.  In his lifetime he had exhibited in Paris, Lille, Roubaix and Lyon and in the Salon des Indépendants.  He was further honored by two retrospective exhibitions held in Paris, one in 1979 and one in 1983.

Chaleyé’s work is in the following museums:  Ville de Paris; French State; Clermont-Ferrand; Puy; Roubaix; Saint-Etienne; Laval;  Musée des Arts Décoratifs.