Marine - Louis Bonamici – Sailor On His Boat – Oil On Canvas – Signed

Oil on canvas probably dating from the 1930s-40s, depicting a sailor on his boat, approaching the ship's tender. The figure is at the center of the composition, his gesture precisely depicted. The red pompom on his cap stands out against a backdrop of greens and browns. In the background, a sky worked in greys and blues lends depth to the scene.
The hulls of the fishing boats firmly establish the composition, while the masts add verticality.
The technique used is knife painting. Yet the whole is full of detail. The shrouds, sheets and hawsers, the planking of the hulls, the furling of the sails... testify to the painter's perfect knowledge of the maritime environment.
Signed lower right. It is clean and in very good condition. There are a few cracks in the thickness of the paste, but they are not very visible. It is presented in a modern molded wooden frame with copper patina, in very good condition.

The artist
Louis Jean Alfred Bonamici, born Luigi Bonamici on January 13, 1878 in Livorno (Italy) and died on March 12, 1966 in France, was a French painter of Italian origin.
He set his sights on painting from an early age. He became a naturalized French citizen in 1912 and settled in the south of France with his wife. They lived in Martigues, Toulon, Bandol, Marseille... Bonamici traveled to Corsica in 1919, where he returned and exhibited regularly.
He was appointed official painter to the navy in 1921. The Bonamici couple traveled to the United States in 1923 and 1924.
He was a popular artist, awarded the Légion d'Honneur in 1928. In 1930, he settled in Le Lavandou on the Var coast, where he remained until his death.
His panels and oil paintings depict seascapes, harbor scenes, fishing scenes, calanques and, more rarely, bouquets of flowers, rural landscapes and village scenes, all set in sun-drenched Provence.
Louis Bonamici always uses a particularly expressive and dynamic knife painting technique.
Between 1907 and 1935, the artist was a regular exhibitor at painting salons in Martigues, Cannes, Nice, Toulon, Paris and Marseille. He also painted in Italy, notably Venice, Greece and North Africa. His trip to North America in 1923-1924 was immortalized by his views of California, and he exhibited in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York between the wars.
His abundant output ensured the painter a certain financial ease, thanks to a network of renowned gallery owners who opened the doors to fame wherever he exhibited: Moullot in Marseille, Armand Drouant and Georges Petit in Paris, John Levy in New York.
Today's art market bears witness to Louis Bonamici's past renown. Mostly present in regional auction houses (Toulon, Marseille, Cannes), Bonamici occasionally appears in national auctions at the Hôtel Drouot. Anglo-Saxon auction houses such as Christie's and Sotheby's sometimes offer Mediterranean paintings by the master.

Work on view at the gallery (07240).
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