Joannès Veimberg (1918 – 1982), Hill Of Sète, View Of The Lagoon

Oil on canvas. Signed lower right. 52.5 × 63.5 cm.

A self-taught painter from Lyon, Joannès Veimberg belongs to the family of “singuliers” – artists both rooted in their time and profoundly independent. A friend of Paul Clair and close to the circle of the Salon du Sud-Est, he briefly attended the evening classes of Antoine Chartres before asserting a highly personal pictorial style of remarkable expressive strength. In 1975, he received the Critic’s Prize in Lyon. It is held in several museums and institutions, including the Renaud Foundation, which received the donation of his studio collection upon his death.

In this painting, Veimberg evokes a Mediterranean shoreline that is both symbolic and human. Three figures occupy the foreground, arranged in a triangular composition that structures the space and leads the eye toward the boats and the hills beyond. The palette, dominated by deep greens, muted blues and touches of red, creates a powerful harmony where the textured paint surface produces a tactile and vibrant rhythm.

Here, the artist unites the maritime setting with an inner vision of the world: the simplified, almost primitive figures convey a sense of human fraternity. A diffuse white light bathes the landscape in meditative intensity. Through his use of black outlines and dense impasto, Veimberg places his painting within the great Expressionist tradition, where colour becomes the direct voice of emotion.

The painting is presented in a broad-profile moulded wooden frame with successive rebates, in a warm blond tone typical of contemporary framings from the 1960s–1970s, which reinforces the composition’s vigour.