Barthélémy Niollon (1849-1927) The Seamstress

Barthélémy NIOLLON (1849-1927) The seamstress, charcoal, 20.5 x 15 cm, signed lower left. Framed dimensions 34 x 28 cm.

                 A pupil of Joseph Villevieille at the Ecole d'Aix, Niollon was a regular at the Café Beaufort with Joseph Ravaisou, Achille Emperaire, Louis Leydet, Louise Germain and others.
                 Niollon maintained excellent relations with all the artists of Aix and was one of the rare friends of Paul Cézanne; although he did not follow his technical examples, he nevertheless defended him on many occasions and perpetuated the memory of the master in his own city.
             He attended the drawing school and won first prize in his first year in 1865, studying under Joseph Villevieille. His talents would have enabled him to obtain a grant from the city of Aix-en-Provence to study in Paris, but he preferred to stay in Provence. In 1874, he married Marie Alexis and became a manufacturer ofougat like his father-in-law. He retired from the trade in 1894 and devoted himself exclusively to painting. He exhibited Le Chaudron at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1882.
              In 1895, Barthélemy Niollon took part in the creation of the Société des amis des arts d'Aix, which was dissolved in 1909, and in a new creation of this society in 1919. He exhibited at the Audin gallery in Aix-en-Provence and then became the dean of the Aix-en-Provence fine arts museum commission.
Barthélemy Niollon was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1925. He died in a fall from the roof of his studio at 36 rue du Quatre-Septembre in Aix-en-Provence.

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