Louis Süe (1875-1968) Geraniums Oil On Canvas Board, Signed Lower Right

This luminous oil painting has a fine provenance: the Louis Süe sale,(auctioneer Claude Robert, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 13), 1968, lot 109 (stamp on the reverse).
Louis Süe, born in Bordeaux on 1875, and died in Paris on 1968, was initially known as an architect and decorator, but he also trained as a painter at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. There, he associated with artists such as Pierre Bonnard, Roger de La Fresnaye, and André Dunoyer de Segonzac, which greatly influenced his early artistic practice. From 1901 onward, he exhibited still lifes, portraits, and landscapes at the Salon des Indépendants, establishing an independent artistic output separate from his work as an architect. Louis Süe is best known for his pioneering role before 1914 in the evolution that led to Art Deco, seeking early on to break with the historical pastiches of the Belle Époque. He gravitated towards a "tempered" modernity, based on the geometrization of forms, the simplification of lines, and a great deal of ornamental restraint. Thus, when he later founded the Compagnie des Arts Français, his artistic language was already taking shape before 1914, which justifies his being considered one of the forerunners of Art Deco.