Maxime Maufra (1861-1918) The Train 1917, Brittany. School Of Pont-aven, Moret, Bréhat, Osterlind

Superb watercolor by Maxime Maufra representing a landscape with a train in 1917, signed and dated lower right. Size of the watercolor alone without frame 23x32cm and 48x54cm including frame. Watercolor in very good condition for its 110 years, paper very slightly creased in a few places that's all. Delivered in a modern golden rod. Work guaranteed authentic. This is therefore a magnificent and interesting watercolor and charcoal by Maxime Maufra who paints here a rather unusual subject a train on a railway track on a viaduct in 1917, I think in Brittany. The choice of the motif is therefore rare, Maufra reproduces here a train traveling on a viaduct, as usual with watercolor he first draws a charcoal sketch which he then enlivens with subtle touches of watercolor in shades of green, intense blue, brown/purple. A powerful work by one of the best French painters of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a spearhead of the Breton school, including the Pont-Aven school. He also spent a lot of time on the island of Bréhat alongside Allan Osterlind. Maxime Maufra, born Maximilien Émile Louis Maufra on May 17, 1861 in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), and died on May 23, 1918 in Poncé-sur-le-Loir (Sarthe), was a French post-impressionist painter, engraver, and lithographer. It was during a stay in Pont-Aven in 1890 that he met Paul Gauguin and Paul Sérusier (1864-1927). The work of these artists overshadowed the influence he had received from painters such as Pissarro and Sisley. He was then strongly influenced by Synthetism, a style invented by Émile Bernard (1868-1941) and developed by Gauguin, which translated forms into flat colors arranged according to a decorative pattern. He then decided to devote himself fully to painting and settled in Pont-Aven. In 1891 and 1892, he frequented Marie Henry's inn in Pouldu with Charles Filiger. He met Gauguin again a few years later in Paris in 1893. This was an opportunity for mutual encouragement and support between these two artists who respected each other. He nevertheless showed a touch of skepticism signaling his independence of character: "I stayed three months in this Breton region of Pont-Aven where I only heard talk of pure Veronese green, chrome, etc., more or less absurd color theories. I prefer bright colors, but you can paint with black… The point is to be a painter, and although this word displeases some, you must first express yourself in this language. In 1892, Maufra and his friend Émile Dezaunay frequented the studio of Eugène Delâtre where they made their first engravings, influenced by Paul Gauguin. He was the first to settle in the Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre in 1893, and his studio was frequented by his friends Dezaunay, Aristide Briand, as well as the poet Victor-Émile Michelet. In 1892 he exhibited a monograph of his work at the second exhibition of Impressionist and Symbolist painters at Le Barc de Boutteville (Paris), with Louis Anquetin, Émile Bernard, Pierre Bonnard, Maurice Denis, Charles Filiger, Maximilien Luce, Henry Moret, Camille Pissarro, Paul-Élie Ranson, Paul Sérusier, Paul Signac, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec during the summer of 1892. He then exhibited at the Durand-Ruel gallery which would be his dealer until the artist's death, and would organize numerous exhibitions of his works. In the spring of 1894, they met again with Gauguin in Brittany at Pouldu, then Maufra went to discover the Trégor region of Finistère. He ended up deepening his own path by approaching landscapes with a predilection for seascapes of Brittany. He also visited the Dauphiné region and the surroundings of Le Havre. That same year he exhibited at the Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts and at the Salon des indépendants and in 1895 he participated in the Exposition des Bretons in Paris, then in several exhibitions in 1896, 1897 and 1901. After a trip to Scotland in the summer of 1895, he married Céline Le Floc'h in London, whom he had met in Pont-Aven. Writing to a friend in 1897, he declared: "I seek the great horizons, the skies!... I would like the landscapes to be classical, simple and immense In 1903, he co-founded with Frantz Jourdain the Salon d'automne at the Petit Palais and he exhibited in 1904. He then stayed in Quiberon, at the Pointe du Raz, on the Crozon peninsula and in many other places. In 1903 he settled in a small farm in Kerhostin, which he acquired in 1910. He tried unsuccessfully to reconstitute a small group there. Only Léon Duval-Gozlan (1853-1941), tired of Parisian life, came to join him. He was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1906[7] and appointed painter of the Navy in 1916. A regionalist activist, Maxime Maufra was one of the leaders of the "fine arts" section of the Breton Regionalist Union. He died of a heart attack on 23 May 1918 at Pont à Poncé, where he had set up his easel.