Watercolor Girl

Watercolor representing a young girl with a necklace from the 1920s at the seaside signed Paul Leroy. With his original frame. Paul Leroy was taken to Odessa (then in Russia) at the age of three, where he began his training as an artist at the Odessa School of Fine Arts from year 1873. According to the biographical note of his work The Treatise on Painting, "his first masters were Messrs. Jorini and Bauer2." In 1877, he left for Paris and was admitted to the Paris School of Fine Arts in the Alexandre Cabanel's workshop. From 1881 to 1939, he exhibited at the Salon des artistes français. He obtained a travel grant allowing him to travel around Italy. In 1884, he obtained the second first grand prize of Rome3 with a painting entitled The Oath of Brutus2. He traveled widely, to Egypt, Tunisia, Persia, Turkey and seven times to Algeria where, in 1885, during his first visit, he discovers the oasis of Biskra. Paul Leroy became a great collector of Arab and Berber objects, he was inspired by his sketches and studies made in the Maghreb. Very attracted by oriental light, he treats his landscapes in an aesthetic close to impressionism. A taste for the Orient encouraged him to paint religious subjects such as The Blind Men of Jericho. In 1889, the State purchased a painting by the painter entitled Weaver in Biskra (which was exhibited at the Salon of the same year) for the Luxembourg Museum2. In 1893, he founded the Society of French Orientalist Painters with Maurice Bompard, Étienne Dinet and Léonce Bénédite in particular, which aimed to promote artistic studies designed under the inspiration of the countries and civilizations of the Orient and the Far East. The first exhibition of this company took place in 1893 at the Palais de l'Industrie and Paul Leroy contributed to it by directing it and exhibiting until 19332. He received a silver medal at the 1900 Universal Exhibition in Paris for the Portrait of Mrs. Delafon. He also teaches at the Académie Vitti in Paris. In the 1910s, he stayed several times in the Arcachon basin where he executed numerous works4. In 1931, he participated in the Colonial Exhibition of Vincennes. Paul Leroy is also recognized for his writings, the French Academy awarded him the Louis-Paul-Miller prize in 1940 for his work Au threshold du Paradis des images5 In 1941, he produced his last painting, Interior of a mosque in Constantinople (Autun, Rolin Museum). He died in Paris in 1942. His daughter Sacha Leroy became a painter.