Painting From The 50s Aix En Provence La Grande Thumine Painting Signed Jean Marzelle

Oil on canvas 65 cm x 50 cm signed lower right Jean Marzelle and located on the back La grande thumine in Aix en Provence. The artist lived there in the 50s where he became a leader of the post-cubist movement. Sold with invoice-certificate. Perfect condition. Born in 1916 in Lauzun in Lot-et-Garonne, Jean Marzelle was attracted to painting very early on. He regularly visited the Fabre Museum in Montpellier and copied the masters including Eugène Delacroix. He painted on the motif, from nature but very early on approaching abstraction in the plastic treatment of his works. In 1935, he left for Paris and took a studio. He enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts. He regularly visited the Louvre Museum and also discovered the Impressionists, who were a revelation to him. In 1942, Jean Marzelle showed his work to the artist François Desnoyer, who encouraged him to continue his painting career. He also worked with André Fougeron, Charles Walch, and Jacques Villon, who had a significant influence on his work. That same year, he participated in the Salon d'Automne, of which he was a member. The following year, he met Léon Gischia, Maurice Estève, and Alfred Manessier. In 1949, he moved to the South of France, near Aix-en-Provence. The landscapes of Provence inspired many of his paintings, including The Red Tree, which he painted in 1955. The Galerie Charpentier in Paris presented his work in a solo exhibition in 1955. He also created wall decorations, notably for the French high school in Lisbon in 1954. At the end of 1955, Raymond Cogniat – an inspector at the Bureau des Travaux d'art – visited Jean Marzelle's exhibition at the Galerie Suillerot in Paris. He thus proposed the acquisition of the painting The Red Tree on behalf of the State: "Marzelle's exhibition at the Galerie Suillerot marks a new and important stage in the art of this painter, who is increasingly assertive and now possesses a very sure and refined craft. The earlier influences of Cézanne and Cubism are assimilated there. I propose the acquisition of a landscape of Aix-en-Provence entitled “The Red Tree” (canvas size 30) whose asking price by the Gallery is 125,000 Frs.[1] "The canvas was finally purchased by the State for 90,000 Francs[2]. It joined the collections of the museum of Le Havre shortly after, which still had no walls. The choice of this work fully illustrates the reflections of Reynold Arnould, the new curator of the museum, on the constitution of a contemporary collection. Attracted by a certain abstraction, Jean Marzelle does not, however, stray entirely from reality and paints a landscape in a cubist inspiration where forms and colors dominate.