André Maire (1898 - 1984) — Vietnam, Floating Houses

Vietnam, Floating Houses
Conté crayon on paper, signed lower left.
44.5 x 42 cm.

Provenance:
Family of the artist.

André Maire (1898-1984) – Painter-traveler, humanist witness to Asia and the world

André Maire was born in Paris in 1898. Sensitive to his early artistic gifts, his father enrolled him in 1909 at the Municipal Drawing School on the Place des Vosges, where he remained a student until his father's death in 1916. The following year, his mother died. To support himself, the young man worked in a theater scenery factory. He frequented the Devambez studio and the painter Emile Bernard, who became his mentor and introduced him to various artistic techniques, advising him on his reading and artistic and personal choices. Mobilized at the end of 1917, André Maire completed his military service in Indochina, where he taught drawing. He discovered the site of Angkor, which would profoundly influence his imagination and his work. In 1921, upon returning from Asia, he traveled to Italy with Emile Bernard and married his daughter Irène in Venice in 1922. The couple settled there for seven years, running a small gallery where André Maire offered his works for sale. They maintained ties with Paris, however, renting a small studio. The artist developed the sepia technique, well-suited to large decorative compositions and a pronounced taste for architecture. In 1930, André Maire won the Casa Velázquez Prize and spent two years in Spain, exploring Toledo, Ronda, Salamanca, Gibraltar, and other destinations. That same year, he acquired a house in Burgundy, in Semur-en-Auxois, which became his home base. In the late 1930s, he discovered Egypt and then India; but while in Ceylon, war broke out, forcing him to return to France where he was mobilized. After the war, he embarked on a journey through Africa along the Niger River, which was interrupted by malaria. 1947 marked his return to Asia, where he settled for ten years (returning to France only in 1951 and 1954). He stayed in Hanoi, Saigon, and Dalat, where he became attached to the highlands and the vibrant life along the banks of the Mekong. He also traveled to Madagascar in the late 1950s. André Maire's journeys were long and allowed him to explore not only landscapes but also local peoples and cultures, forging a humanist vision that permeates all his work. From the 1930s onwards, he exhibited in prestigious Parisian galleries: Charpentier, Georges Petit, and also in Brussels at Isy Brachot. He spent the last years of his life in Semur-en-Auxois, continuing to paint, nourished by the memories and reveries of his many travels. In 2015, the Alexis Pentcheff Gallery, in collaboration with his daughter, Lorédana Harscoët-Maire, organized a major retrospective of André Maire's work, presenting more than one hundred pieces.

Discover more of this artist's work on the gallery's website: https://www.galeriepentcheff.fr/fr/peintre-andre-maire