Claude Firmin (1864-1944) The Old Provencal Farm

Pretty colors, light, and the bucolic atmosphere of a farm near Avignon at the beginning of the 20th century by the great artist member of the famous Group of 13 Claude Firmin. The work in excellent condition is offered in a pretty gilded frame in carved wood which measures 47 cm by 55 and 33 cm by 41 cm for the panel alone. It represents an old farmhouse where a couple of peasants work, one near a haystack, the other giving grain to the hens. It is signed and dated 1907 lower left, countersigned and located in Avignon on the back. Claude Firmin, known as "the Goy" (the lame in Provençal), painted many frescoes for the town hall of Avignon. he exhibited at the Salon des artistes français from 1889 to 1922; he obtained an honorable mention there in 1902 for Le Sentier des saules en Provence and Mon Doreur. A member of the group of thirteen chaired by Clément Brun, he is considered a Provençal master of painting. He became a professor (1922), then director (1937-1941) of the School of Fine Arts in Avignon. He was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor on January 29, 1937. The grandparents of the poet Henri Rode, in the kitchen of their farm in Cairanne, were painted by Firmin in 1902. Works in the public collections Avignon musée Calvet : Le Brocanteur, or Interior of a Repairer of Works of Art, 1896, oil on canvas, 108 × 128 cm; Rhône sand pits in Villeneuve-les-Avignon, 1905, oil on canvas, 162 × 222 cm; Portrait of Noël Biret in his studio, oil on canvas, 42 × 33.5 cm Louis Vouland Museum La Régalade, 1910, oil on canvas; Farm Interior, 1903, oil on canvas; The Departure, 1914, oil on canvas, 46 × 38 cm.