"Le Marin" / huile sur toile/ René Charles BELLANGER / Datée 1926

Magnificent portrait of a sailor by the artist René Charles Bellanger (1895-1964).
Oil on canvas, signed and dated 1926 lower right.

41 x 23 unframed Very good condition, relined.

Painter born in Augicourt in the Oise on December 2, 1895. Pupil of Félix Courché and Pierre Montezin. Exhibited at the Salons des Indépendants from 1925 to 1939 and at the French Artists in 1925. Very early on, he felt the need to draw landscapes. From the beginning, encouragement was lavished on him by his friends Maximilien Luce, Pierre Eugène Montézin, Louis Valtat and Maurice de Vlaminck. Listening to the lessons of his elders, he remained himself: a sensitive artist, in love with light and color, for whom working at his easel is the purest of joys, this joie de vivre that shines in his paintings. He paints the banks of the Ill, the Alsatian houses. He meets in Strasbourg Marie Lucie Zumsteg who will become his wife and with whom he will settle in Dreux. 1923, Bellanger gets married and settles in Dreux where he and his brother set up a bankrupt motorcycle workshop. The proximity of Paris allows him to maintain contacts with the artistic circles of the capital. During a hunting trip, he meets Pierre Montézin, 20 years his senior, who already has many friends in Dreux. He finds himself drawn into a group of landscape painters who advise and encourage him. He became a member of the Independents where he met Luce and Signac, which encouraged him to work for the Salon. However, his professional activities take up a lot of his time. He spends his Sundays painting and in the summer, leaves at dawn with his easel in the surrounding countryside. He also happens to take his factory as a subject. In 1933, Exhibition of painting and sculpture at the Museum of Dreux which presents with Bellanger a large number of artists including Montézin, Bertram, Désiré-Lucas, Tigrane Polat, René Juste, Prévost-Valeri. Then a more intimate exhibition at the Galerie François Bâton with Poilat, Pfeiffer Montézin. Until 1939, Bellanger was torn between his professional concerns and his exhibitions to independents and French artists, where he obtained the Silver Medal in 1936 for the painting of Boulevard de la Gare in Dreux In 1939, Paul-Emile Pissaro entrusts for some time the custody of 36 works of his father Camille Pissaro. With the debacle of 1940, Bellanger takes them to Bordeaux where his family has taken refuge. It will return to Dreux to spend a good part of the war there until 1943 when Bellanger will return it to its owner. The years of occupation passed with the difficulties of the time and the many services rendered to his Parisian painter friends who lacked oil to paint and everything else. His comings and goings with the capital allow him to often meet Louis Valtat and Abel Bertram. He also does not forget Vlaminck who, since 1936, has retired to Rueil-la-Gadelière. 1946 He sees the Dutch painter Anton Kruysen who has returned to live in the region and travels with him to the Netherlands. Bellanger develops after the war a rather dark style, marked by Vlaminck First private exhibition at the Barbizon Gallery, rue des Saints-Pères in Paris. After an accident that immobilized him for two months during which he only painted bouquets in the studio, he decided to transform his car into a rolling studio, which would allow him to paint in all weathers on the motif Exhibition in Rouen at the Galerie Prigent , then in Paris, at the Galerie Jean de Ruaz, avenue de Friedland. He then left to paint in Brittany. The landscapes he brings back testify to the development of his art. Bellanger has now found his style in these knife paintings whose luminous hues are further enhanced with bright colors Exhibition at the Museum of Orleans with the Artists of Orleans. Private exhibition at Jean de Ruaz on the Seine from Paris to Le Havre. Trip to Spain where he settles to paint on the Costa Brava March: Nice and the hinterland in the spring, return via Arles and the surrounding area June: trip to Schwäbisch Hall where he is received by the painter and engraver Frank. Then goes to Munich, visits the Pinakothek, paints in Salzburg, Innsbruck, etc. Source Benezit