Jacques Martin Ferrières (1893 - 1972) — Konavle, Near Dubrovnik, Dances

Konavle, near Dubrovnik, dances
Oil on panel, signed lower left.
38 x 46 cm

Jacques Martin-Ferrières : A life of painting, travel and light

Fourth son of the painter Henri Martin, Jacques Martin-Ferrières was very early in his studies under the guidance of his father. He would definitively devote himself to his passion for painting after studying chemistry, which allowed him, initiated into the requirements of pigments, to prepare his own colors. He began with interior decorations, female portraits, already against a backdrop of large landscapes with expressive lines. Curious about everything, a musician - of an excellent level in cello and piano - he liked to frequent theaters and concerts where he sketched face after face with a firm and mischievous pencil. His first exhibitions at the Salon (1920, 1923) were a success. In 1924 he obtained a scholarship that opened the doors to the traditional trip to Italy: he then painted Venice, Florence, Rome, Assisi. He acquired a taste for travel, and from then on lived crisscrossing Europe - Spain, Italy, Greece, Croatia, Scotland, Holland, Germany, Switzerland - in the summer traveling with his brush in his fingers as soon as a motif stopped him, in the winter in his studio, nourishing his works with the experience of travel. Flowers also often held the attention of this colorist, those of the garden, planted with a view to future compositions, or in bouquets picked for the studio. In 1928, he undertook the decoration of the church of St Christophe de Javel in Paris. The success of this collection brought him other commissions, in St-Ouen, Romans-sur-Isère, Montauban, St Louis in Marseille. The war put a brake on this magnificent momentum. Jacques, following the brutality he suffered at the time, gradually lost the use of one eye: the painter would not reappear until 1956, but the large compositions in which his vitality, his talent and his warm but always slightly mocking gaze had been so well expressed were over. However, he began to travel again, notably to the United States where he exhibited regularly. Until his death he painted, until his death he exhibited. The landscapes and flowers of Martin-Ferrières keep us company today with as much life, warmth and color as if he were about to enter the room.
By Marie-Anne Destrebecq-Martin

Discover more of this artist's works on the gallery's website: https://www.galeriepentcheff.fr/fr/peintre-jacques-martin-ferrieres#Bio