François Desnoyer (1894-1972) Oil On Panel Port Boats At The Quay

Oil on hardboard depicting a view of a port, by François Desnoyer, painter born in Montauban in 1894 and deceased in Perpignan in 1972.
Signed on the back.
Good condition.
Dimensions without frame : 41 X 24 cm.
Dimensions with frame : 55 X 38 cm.
François Desnoyer was born in Montauban in 1894, to parents from a modest background. He clearly seems to have been very attached to his grandparents, especially his grandfather, who believed in his desire to paint and introduced him to Antoine Bourdelle, also from Montauban, who quickly took him under his wing. Against his father's advice, he moved to Paris in 1912. This was the beginning of his so-called "dictionary" period. He sought to learn, especially techniques, by all available means.
He was mobilized at the start of the First World War. Seriously injured in 1917, he drew during the long waits, to avoid giving in to despair. Once the war was over, he returned to Montauban where he met his friends Lucien Pierre Cadène, Marcel-Lenoir, Lucien Andrieu and Hubert Bergère, among others, all equally passionate about art and painting.
He returned to Paris in 1920 to join the Arts Décoratifs. He then exhibited at the Salon des Jeunes then at the Salon des Indépendants (1921-1922), the Salon d'Automne (1925), the Salon des Tuileries (1925) and the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. In 1924, he exhibited a first series of color lithographs, La Place nationale de Montauban.
During the 1930s, he led a dual career as a teacher and an artist. He exhibited only a few times, but was very active in sending works to be included in the salons. He forced himself to paint and draw every day.
In 1932, Desnoyer met the woman who would become his second wife, Souza (1901-1988). He then traveled with her to Czechoslovakia, where she was from, and produced a number of local portraits and landscapes, notably at the Bakulé Institute. The paintings of this period were still very precise and marked by the influence of Gauguin, and more broadly of the Fauvist painters[2], notably in his back nudes. But the real turning point was in 1934, when Desnoyer participated in the Salon des Indépendants, alongside Robert Lotiron, Édouard Goerg and especially Marcel Gromaire. All three would become his long-term friends and influences. In 1940, he stayed with Marcelle and Albert Marquet, who had become close to him. In the Fauvist's studio, he worked at L'Escale 1940 while Marquet painted his portrait and gave it to him.
When the Second World War broke out, Desnoyer remained in Paris and was reluctantly forced to leave Marquet, who had left for Algeria. He was then mobilized for the second time: he was 46 years old. He returned after a few months and supported the Parisian resistance from home. He ran a clandestine publishing house in his studio, while continuing his activities as a teacher and artist. At the end of the war, when the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris reopened, a room was dedicated to Desnoyer, between Marc Chagall and Gromaire.
At the end of the Second World War, Desnoyer settled in Sète at the invitation of Jean Vilar. It was this city that he quickly chose to spend his summers there, then to live there all year round. But Desnoyer still traveled a lot, as in 1948 when Marcelle Marquet invited him to Algeria to the studio of her late husband. A series of orientalist paintings were born from this trip, as from all those undertaken by Desnoyer.
In 1952, Desnoyer participated in the Venice Biennale with Fernand Léger and Raoul Dufy, the Le Havre native who had become his friend. Ten years later, the Desnoyer Foundation was founded in Saint-Cyprien, which regularly hosted artists in residence and contemporary art exhibitions. Desnoyer's last major trip took him to Asia, Japan, Hong Kong and India, where he exhibited and painted, having acquired international renown.
Desnoyer lost his friends George Besson, Marcel Gromaire and Jean Vilar in 1971. He died the following year in Saint-Cyprien (Pyrénées-Orientales).
Desnoyer donated most of his modern art collection and his personal archives to the town of Saint-Cyprien. The town perpetuated the Desnoyer Foundation, which in 2005 became the "Desnoyer Collection", organizing temporary exhibitions of modern art and keeping the artist's work and memory alive.