Georges Philibert Charles Maroniez (1865-1933)

Georges Philibert Charles MARONIEZ (1865-1933) Fishing boats, setting sun Oil on Panel signed lower right 22x27cm 36.5x425cm (framed) Georges Maroniez born in Douai on January 17, 1865 and died in Paris on December 11, 1933, a painter, French photographer and inventor. Son of an industrialist, Georges Philibert Charles Maroniez shows a taste and gifts for drawing and painting. His father encouraged him but also asked him to study law. After his studies, he began a career as a magistrate, successively in Boulogne-sur-Mer (1891), Avesnes-sur-Helpe (1894) and Cambrai ( 1897). At the same time as law school, he diligently followed academic courses at the Douai School of Fine Arts, and in 1880 became a student of Pierre Billet (1837-1922) at Cantin. There he met the painter Adrien Demont (1851-1928), son-in-law of the realist painter Jules Breton (1827-1906). On the advice of the latter, he presented his first painting at the Salon de Douai then, in 1887 in Paris. In Wissant, he became friends with Adrien Demont and Virginie Breton, with whom he discovered the landscapes of the coast. Every summer for several years, around the Demont-Bretons, he met up with his friends from Douais: Fernand Stiévenart, Henri and Marie Duhem, Félix Planquette. This is the era of the Wissant group. We will also talk about the "School of Wissant" or "of the Opal Coast", including painters from Berck who were friends of the Demont-Bretons, one of the most illustrious being Francis Tattegrain (1852-1915). Thanks to the presentation and sponsorship of Adrien Demont, Georges Maroniez became, in 1889, a member of the Society of French Artists. At the annual Salon, he will obtain an honorable mention in 1891, a 3rd class medal in 1905 and a 2nd class medal in 1906; the latter classifying it out of competition at the following Salons. In 1905, the success of his painting and the anticlerical policy of the Combes ministry led him to resign from the bench and devote himself entirely to his art. Mobilized in 1914 when the First World War broke out, he was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor 5 in July 1918. During the occupation of the North, his workshop was looted and his wife deported to Holzminden in Lower Saxony with hundreds of other French civilian hostages. The Maroniez family moved to Paris in 1919, rue d'Aguesseau. In 1922, he was named Rosati d'honneur. Public collections Laurel (Mississippi), Lauren Rogers Museum of Art (in) New York, Dahesh Art Museum: Boulogne-sur-Mer, castle-museum: Lille, Palace of Fine Arts:. United Kingdom, Leamington Spa, Art Gallery and Museum: Tainan, Chimei Museum: