Jeanne-marie Barbey (1876-1960), Trees In Winter, Brown Ink Wash And Graphite Pencil

Jeanne-Marie BARBEY (1876-1960)
Trees in winter
Brown ink wash and graphite pencil on paper
Signed lower right
26 x 20 cm
frame 46 x 40 cm

Born Louise Jeanne Marie Barbée in 1876 in Paris, Jeanne-Marie Barbey was of Breton origin through both her parents. With a view to teaching drawing, she obtained the diploma of the higher primary schools and the teacher training colleges in 1896 and then the diploma of the schools of the city of Paris in 1907. She was a drawing teacher until 1939.

Deeply attached to Brittany, Jeanne-Marie Barbey was a member of the Regionalist Federation of Brittany. She spent long stays in Gourin in Morbihan where she drew a large part of her subjects. The artist stocked up on photographic images there which nourished her pictorial work. A worthy student of the naturalist painter Louis-Marie Désiré-Lucas (1869-1949), she began with interior scenes in chiaroscuro before representing outdoor scenes of rural life illustrating field work and the polar festivals that she created in the tradition of the Breton colorists and the so-called “synthetist” painters of the Pont-Aven school. Her painted work coupled with her photographic work are precious testimonies of Brittany at the beginning of the 20th century.

Jeanne-Marie Barbey exhibited at the Salon des artistes français from 1901 where she signed “Barbey” then at the Salon des Indépendants from 1912 and in the 1920s at the Salon des Tuileries. Through her friend Paul Signac, then president of the Society of Independent Artists, she became the first woman to join the association's committee in 1926 before being secretary-rapporteur and then treasurer from 1943 to 1960.

In 1919, she organized the first exhibition entitled “Painters of Armor” at the Goupil Gallery.

Part of her photographic collection is kept at the Brittany Museum in Rennes.

Public collections : Rennes, Brittany Museum / Vannes, La Cohue, Fine Arts Museum / Le Faouët, Faouët Museum

Bibliography : Collective, Regard(s) - Jeanne-Marie Barbey (1876-1960), exhibition cat. Vannes, La Cohue, Fine Arts Museum, 2017.

Selected exhibitions : Women artists in Brittany, Le Faouët, Faouët Museum, 2013. Modernity in Brittany. From Claude Monet to Lucien Simon 1870-1920., Pont-Aven, Pont-Aven Museum, 2017. Look(s) - Jeanne-Marie Barbey (1876-1960), Vannes, Cohue Museum, 2017-18.