Louis Moreau (1883-1958). Sunny Undergrowth. Crozant School, Châteauroux, Anarchist, Luce

The penultimate work by Louis Moreau out of 11 (I still have a watercolor of Paris to publish), this time the largest oil on cardboard depicting a sunlit undergrowth, signed in the lower right corner. The painting alone, excluding the frame, measures 33 x 41 cm. This is a magnificent post-impressionist work by Louis Moreau. He employs his preferred technique of broad, richly textured areas of color, and here a palette made up of a superb range of greens followed by subtle touches of vermilion red, yellow, and violet. Louis Moreau needs no introduction; he is certainly my favorite painter from the Crozant school, one of my favorites along with Detroy, Coucy, and Marcel Belle. Listed in the Crozant school, but also and above all an excellent engraver, also known for his views of Brittany and finally for his writings, he was a fervent anarchist activist, he published numerous works against Nazism with sumptuous illustrations, an exceptional painter to compare somewhat with the activism of Maximilien Luce. A libertarian and pacifist, seeking neither glory nor honor, he nonetheless left behind a very important body of work, partly engravings but also sumptuous paintings. Louis Moreau, born in Châteauroux on April 15, 1883, and died in Malakoff on March 9, 1958, was a French painter, engraver, illustrator, and libertarian activist. After an apprenticeship in a lithography workshop, he moved to Paris in 1900 where he practiced his talents as a painter and engraver under the influence of Bernard Naudin, who was his compatriot and friend. He contributed to the journal Les Temps nouveaux, founded by Jean Grave in 1902, and worked for the publishing house Éditions du Pot cassé. During the First World War, he collaborated on Le Semeur, a newspaper printed clandestinely in 1916 by Maurice Charron (known as Pierre Chardon), and then on La Forge, an art and literature journal (1917-1920). During the interwar period, he produced numerous woodcuts. Engraved at L'En-dehors, edited by Émile Armand. He contributed to La Revue anarchiste, edited by Ferdinand Fortin. In July 1937, he donated several of his works to a benefit exhibition and sale for the orphans of Spanish Republicans in the Llansa colony. After World War II, he contributed to L'Unique, published by Émile Armand until 1956, and to L'Homme et la vie, founded by Manuel Devaldès in 1946. In 1950, his home in Neuilly was placed on the police's list of anarchist residences to be monitored. The painting is in perfect condition, recently cleaned, and comes in a lovely modern gilt frame. Like the other 10 works (see my other listings), it is guaranteed authentic.