20th Century Painting By Raphaël Drouart "by The Fireside"

Superb watercolor drawing enhanced with gouache by Raphaël DROUART (1884-1972) Maurice Raphaël Drouart, is a French engraver, painter and illustrator. He studied painting in the studio of Fernand Cormon and frequented the Nabis, among others Maurice Denis. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts in 1909. In 1912-1913, after completing his studies at the Ranson Academy, Maurice Denis hired him as an assistant to help him paint the ceiling of the Champs-Élysées theater. Drouart began to master the different engraving techniques (copper, wood, etching, lithography) before 1914, but mobilized at the beginning of the First World War, he only managed to express his art after 1918. During the conflict, he presented his first prints at the Salon of 1919. He joined the Society of Original Wood Engraving. In the 1920s, Drouart began working as an illustrator for numerous art publishers, including Arthur Goldscheider, who grouped all his artistic collaborators under the name "L'Évolution"; they showed their productions during the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts (Paris, 1925). In 1931, Drouart published an album containing 26 lithographs, which he had produced in the 1920s. After living between 1940 and 1965 in his studio located in Les Portes-en-Ré, he died in Nogent-sur-Marne on April 8, 1972. He was a knight of the Legion of Honor (1938). The sale of his studio took place on May 25, 2012 at Drouot, under the expertise of Hélène Bonafous-Murat. This painting represents a scene of life in an interior where we see a man from behind and a woman sitting by the stove. The precise line and the bright colors give this painting a great realism. Quality work in excellent condition, signed lower left in red R. DROUART