Fez - Suzanne Drouet-réveillaud (1885-1970)

An oil on canvas measuring 61 x 50 cm depicting the city of Fez in Morocco, signed and located lower right, circa 1925, is a work by Suzanne Drouet-Réveillaud (1885-1970).

Granddaughter of the sculptor Charles Cordier, she was among the first women admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. She studied under Ferdinand Humbert and her classmates included Marcelle Ackein and Aline de Lens. She received awards from the Société Coloniale des Artistes Français, which granted her a scholarship to Tunisia in 1919 and then to Morocco in 1923. She married André Réveillaud, a civil administrator in Meknes, later a lawyer in Fez and a writer. She lived in Morocco until 1950, residing in the medina of Fez. It was in this country that she created the majority of her work. She participated in several exhibitions at the Derche Gallery in Casablanca with painters Marcel Vicaire and Jean Baldoui from 1929 to 1931, and her work was praised by critics of the time. In 1954, she won a prize that allowed her to travel to Cameroon. At 69 years old, she explored the country, bringing back canvases depicting remote villages and portraits of women from different tribes. Undaunted, she then embarked in 1960 on a cargo ship journey that took her to China and Japan, followed by another trip to Mexico in 1963, this time by plane, bringing back new canvases from these countries, all demonstrating her remarkable mastery of color.