Pierre Deval (1897 - 1993) — At The Café, Paris, Champs Elysées

At the café, Paris, Champs Elysées
Watercolor and ink on paper, signed lower right.
17 x 11 cm

Provenance:
Artist's studio

Pierre Deval (1897–1993) – Painter of poetic modernity between Lyon and the Midi

Born in 1897 in Lyon to a family of silk workers with international connections, Pierre Deval discovered drawing at a very young age, which he practiced as an autodidact. His first studio was set up a stone's throw from the family home, and his early studies were nourished by copies of the old masters, notably at the Musée des Moules. He was deeply influenced by the work of Rodin, whose expressive force, sensuality of bodies, and purity of lines he admired. Passionate about literature, music, and poetry, he adopted a sensitive and meditative approach to painting. After a brief military engagement interrupted for health reasons, he moved to Paris in 1921 to complete his artistic training. He studied at the Cormon studio, then under Émile-René Ménard and Lucien Simon at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière. In the capital, he frequented avant-garde circles thanks to his friend Jacques Rigaut and founded the magazine Promenoir, alongside Jean Lacroix and Jean Epstein. Although short-lived, the magazine attracted the collaboration of major figures such as Cendrars, Cocteau, and Fernand Léger. In 1922, his painting Ariane was noticed at the Salon and earned him a scholarship to stay at the Villa Abd-el-Tif in Algiers. For two years, Deval discovered Algeria, pushed as far as the south of the country, and stayed in Morocco. However, he distanced himself from the academic and colonial spirit of the Villa and asserted a personal modernity, sometimes poorly perceived locally, as evidenced by the scandal caused by his painting The Beach. There he met Albert Marquet, with whom he became a close friend. Upon his return, he married Henriette, his traveling companion, and settled in Paris, on Quai Saint-Michel, in the same building as Marquet and Jacqueline Marval. In 1925, the couple discovered the Orvès estate in La Valette-du-Var. This 18th-century country house, surrounded by gardens and springs, became their haven of peace and the center of their lives. The place attracted artists and writers: Henri Bosco, Pierre-Jean Jouve, and Willy Eisenschitz stayed there. While living in seclusion in the South of France, Deval maintained close ties with the art scenes of Lyon and Paris. He regularly exhibited in galleries (Carmine, Druet, etc.) and participated in the Salons. Although he was influenced by the avant-garde, he remained faithful to a classical, refined, and sensitive figuration, devoted mainly to female representation. His models, often anonymous, inspire a sensual, dreamy world tinged with Mediterranean elegance. The bankruptcy of the family business in 1930 deprived him of resources, but Deval managed to maintain the estate thanks to commissioned portraits, which he produced without considering them fully integrated into his work. He continued to exhibit actively in the 1930s, with the help of the critic and collector Georges Besson, his great supporter for two decades. During the Second World War, the Orvès property was requisitioned by German forces. The couple had to flee, the gardens were devastated. After the Liberation, a long restoration project began. In 1951, a falling out with Besson permanently distanced him from Parisian circles, but Deval continued to exhibit in Toulon, Lyon, Geneva and Aix-en-Provence. He spent the last decades of his life on his estate, surrounded by his family and a landscape that he never ceased to interpret with tenderness and modesty. The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Toulon dedicated a retrospective to him in 1971. Pierre Deval died in 1993, almost a hundred years old, in the heart of this Provence whose light and silent grace he had managed to translate.

Discover more of this artist's works on the gallery's website: https://www.galeriepentcheff.fr/fr/peintre-pierre-deval#Oeuvres