The "conversation", Large Oil On Canvas By Emile Guillaume

Style: French School circa 1950Condition: Very good conditionTechnique: Oil on canvasOther: Signed lower leftDimensions: 65/81cmDimensions with frame: 87/103cmShipping France: €50Emile Guillaume (Paris 1900-Saint-Nazaire 1975)Trained at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Émile Guillaume settled in La Baule in 1928. Thanks to his friendship with several architects from La Baule-Escoublac, he created decorations in several villas, as well as at the Hôtel de la Plage et du Golf where he painted the decoration of the dining room and at the Gare routière des Frères Drouin where he decorated the circular hall of the Hall des voyageurs. His decorations depict the lives of the fishermen of Pouliguen and the salt workers of Saillé.Source: Modernity in Brittany 2 From Jean Julien Lemordant to Mathurin Méheut 1920-1940, Silvana Editoriale, Musée de Pont-Aven Emile Guillaume attended the Beaux-Arts in Paris. He was captivated by Mathurin Méheut's instant style. In 1928, he spent his holidays with his grandmother in Le Pouliguen and decided to settle in La Baule. Working with the decorator Marcel Darroux, Roger Bernheim entrusted him with the ambiance of the Hôtel Plage et Golf, Plage Benoit, renovated by the architect P.-H. Datessen. Like Lemordant and Garin, Emile Guillaume painted regionalist frescoes: the fishermen of Le Pouliguen, the salt workers of Saillé, and the fishmongers of Le Croisic brightened up the dining room. J. Le Bihan published an article about it in the magazine Bretagne (n°89; 1930). Emile Guillaume then became friends with the painter from Saint-Nazaire, René-Yves Creston, and then with the architects from La Baule, Grave, Meunier, Louis, and Boesch. His pictorial style is easily recognizable with his fishermen at work, in yellow or red raincoats, hauling boats and collecting tuna. Then their faces, cut with a billhook, clash in the port bar under the pale glow of an oil lamp. During the war, Guillaume gave drawing lessons and published a book on Celtic decorations in Modern Art (Brest, 1944). As an illustration, he published a map of Brittany with costumes and remarkable places and did the same with the Guérande Peninsula. Finally, a small masterpiece: the series of postcards where his pencil delightfully sketches beautiful Breton women, grandmothers, and old sea dogs.