Maurice Le Scouëzec

Born in 1881 in Le Mans to a Breton father who was a railway inspector and the great-grandson of shipowners from Lorient, Maurice Le Scouëzec (whose name means broad shoulders in Breton) frequented the creative and iconoclastic world of the Montparnasse painters at the beginning of the 20th century. From 1917 to 1924, he set up shop on Rue Delambre, not far from that of his friend Modigliani. He was also close to Foujita, Pascin and Zadkine. His paintings depict street scenes and cafés on the Grands Boulevards. Also a painter of Brittany and a great traveller, he toured the world, Venezuela, Madagascar, Upper Volta, the Sahara, before returning permanently to France, to his home in Douarnenez, where he died in 1940.