Alfred Bergier (1881-1971), Landscape With Rapeseed Field, Oil On Cardboard

Alfred BERGIER (1881-1971)
Landscape with rapeseed field
oil on cardboard
16 x 22 cm

Born in 1881 in Avignon, Alfred Bergier was a painter of the Provençal school. He participated in the first exhibition of the Group of Thirteen founded in 1912 by Clément Brun (1865-1920) which brought together thirteen Avignon painters on the fringes of the Vaucluse Society of Friends of the Arts. It was later remodeled and chaired by Alfred Bergier in the 1940s, then a renowned watercolorist. In 1913, the artist exhibited notable landscapes at the Salon des Artistes Français, in which he regularly participated. In 1928 and again in 1930, the Georges Petit gallery presented several of his works. He also exhibited at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts and the Salon des Indépendants. The landscapes of his native region were his favorite subjects. He translates its thousand faces, between cypresses, oleanders and fields bathed in light “treated with a striking sureness of vision and relief”*. His paintings thus recall the words of Virgil in the Underworld: “Who will give me back the beautiful light of day?” Alfred Bergier is the artistic director of the regional magazine Soleil de France - so that the French keep the sun in their hearts, organ of the Academy of Poets of the Sun, founded in 1942. He also produced illustrations for various works, notably for the collection of poems by Georges Delaquys: Les Confidences lyriques published by Editions du Trésor d'art provençal (1942). The small-format landscape treated in oil on panel that we present translates, in fine shades of brown and blue-grey, the complex interplay of earth and water under the caress of the autumn sun. *Fine Arts, Les Tablettes d'Avignon et de Provence: weekly illustrated, Avignon, December 1932, n°344, p.16.