Gouache By Marcel Gaillard (ent. Of) - Sailboat In The Moonlight

Circle of Marcel GAILLARD (Abbeville, 1886 – Liesville-sur-Douve, 1847) Sailboat in the moonlight gouache stencil on paper 36 x 54 cm illegible signature lower left Originally from Normandy, Marcel Gaillard trained at the Beaux-Arts in Rouen and arrived in Paris in 1906. Bohemian, he easily integrated into a student group from the Latin Quarter who were familiar with the Luxembourg Gardens. The same year the Luxembourg counterfeiters affair broke out. Due to his presence at the scene of the crime, the police searched for him and arrested him in Dieppe. His departure from Paris led to accusations and a seven-month prison sentence. After a dismissal of the case, he made a living painting postcards of Breton views and gouaches, which he sold on café terraces. Developed during this period, the gouache stencil technique followed the artist throughout his career, as evidenced by the drawing presented to you. Shortly after, our adventurous artist was again wanted by the police and had to flee to Belgium. Arrested and then cleared a second time, he then became a member of the Independents and exhibited in 1913 at the Salon d'Automne. After the First World War, he founded the Young French Painting group in 1918 and organized his first exhibition at the Manzi Gallery alongside Auguste Renoir and Pierre Bonnard. In 1920, Gaillard won the French Equatorial Africa Prize and a travel grant that allowed him to discover the Congo and Sudan, and he then spent time in Algeria. These African adventures opened the doors to the colonial art that was in vogue in Paris and Marseille. He was chosen to decorate the tea room of the Grands Magasins du Louvre, for which he created a huge diorama. Towards the end of his life in 1943, he was taken in by a priest in Normandy for whom he undertook the frescoes of the Saint-Martin church in Liesville-sur-Douve, where he now rests. Everything suggests that the gouache presented to you was created by an acquaintance of Marcel Gaillard, most certainly by one of his companions, so close are the workmanship and style.