Clémentine Ballot (1879-1964) "the Barrat Mill On The Creuse C.1913" Woman From The School Of Cr

EXEPTIONAL and SUPERB oil/canvas by Clémentine Ballot representing the Barrat mill on the Creuse around 19213, signed lower left + located on old labels on the back, partly illegible. Format without frame 73x60cm. It is indeed a sumptuous and rare post-impressionist composition with a Fauve tendency by Clémentine Ballot representing the famous Barrat mill on the Creuse around 1913. First of all, it is one of the emblematic mills of the Creuse valley having been submerged during the impoundment of the Eguzon dam in 1926, so today disappeared; this mill was notably painted by Eugène Alluaud, Henri Pailler and Anders Osterlind. Then we immediately recognize Clémentine Ballot's very specific way of painting, with large flat tints and above all a spectacular coloring with tawny tones of yellow, soft greens, pink, orange, blue etc...probably the best colorist in the world. school with Paul Madeline. Clémentine Ballot will have 3 big influences, indeed when she comes to the Creuse valley she will first meet Léon Detroy whose touch she will adopt, as proof of her spectacular Pin mill extremely close to that of Detroy exhibited at the museum. of Chateauroux. Then she will be briefly influenced by Paul Madeline, and finally and above all she will become the friend and pupil of Armand Guillaumin, certainly his clearest influence that we notice when observing this new painting. They will go together on the same grounds, they are moreover very often photographed together, see on the various works on Armand Guillaumin. Clémentine Ballot is now one of the women painters of the Crozant school, surely the most popular and recognized, followed by Palma Daillon (see my other announcements), Mania Mavro, Solange Chgristauflour, Jeanne Ponge or Suzanne Léger. As a child and teenager, she had a gift for drawing and devoted her childhood savings to buying reproductions of Manet, Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Cézanne and Lautrec. Then she trained in the painting and drawing classes of Fernand Desmoulins, with the support of her husband, Jules Gabriel Ballot, married in 1902. The latter took her that year to visit Creuse, where her family originated. She is dazzled by the landscapes and works in Gargilesse and Fresselines, but also in North Brittany in Loguivy, and on the Var coast in Agay. She meets Léon Detroy in the Creuse and executes some pointillist canvases on his advice, but does not want to lock herself into this method. In 1912 she met Armand Guillaumin. He recognizes his already formed talent and encourages him. A solid friendship was formed, as evidenced by numerous letters from Armand Guillaumin which have come down to us and are transcribed into English in Christopher Gray's work on Guillaumin. Clémentine Ballot spent a large part of the war in Crozant, with her two young sons, André (born in 1903) and Roger (born in 1904). while her husband is at the front, serving as a photographer in the army. In the Creuse valley, she met Eugène Alluaud, Anders Osterlind, Mania Mavro, Georges-Hanna-Sabbagh, Alfred Smith, Francis Picabia, Paul Madeline and Armand Point. These artists stay or often meet at the Hôtel Lépinat in Crozant, which has now become an exhibition centre. After the war, while residing in Paris, 97 rue de Monceau, Paris 17th, she came to work in the field for several months each year. From 1920 to 1929, she painted mainly in Andelys, on the banks of the Seine. From then on, his style quickly evolved towards more construction of forms, perhaps under the influence of Nicolas Poussin, born in these places, and Paul Cézanne. There she meets Henri Lebasque, Maximilien Luce, Jean-Eugène Clary, Paul-Emile Pissaro, Albert Lebourg, Signac, and is received by Monet. She also worked in the 1920s in Poitou. In the 1930s she painted in the Lot, the Dordogne, in the Balearic Islands in Majorca, in Cadaques in Catalonia, and in the south of France in Saint Paul de Vence, Saint Tropez, Bormes, Cassis. She also draws large charcoals on the old villages of Provence. After the death of her husband in 1937, she spent part of the second war in Mollans sur Ouvèze, in Drôme. From 1945 to 1950, she notably went to the Yonne, to Arcy sur Cure. Then, in the 1950s, in her seventies, she criss-crossed Brittany. Finally, in her eighties, she still painted in Menton, during the summer of 1964, a few weeks before her death, at her home at 10 rue de Saint-Senoch (Paris, 17th). She exhibited in the salons in Paris from 1910 and organized her own exhibitions throughout her career, from 1923. After the Georges Petit gallery, she exhibited at Bernheim Jeune in 1936, then notably at Marcel Bernheim. Clémentine Ballot was decorated with the Legion of Honor and received the Puvis de Chavannes prize in 1950 A friend of the painter Jean-Eugène Clary and his wife, she received from her widow the portrait of Suzanne Valadon at the age of twenty, painted by her husband around 1887. She donated this work in 1956 to the National Museum of Modern Art. This canvas was recently cleaned, in perfect condition, delivered in its pretty period frame. Authentic guarantee