Maurice Asselin (1882-1947) Still Life With Lobsters And Fish, Oil On Canvas, Signed

 Maurice Asselin (1882-1947)
Still life with lobsters and fish
Signed lower left
Oil on canvas
54 x 73 cm
In good condition
Framed (minor lacks of gilding) : 69.5 x 88.5 cm

Maurice Asselin's love of Brittany is well documented, and he pays tribute to the region's natural treasures in this still life of lobsters and fish. It is also interesting to see the artist renewing the still life genre, which he practised extensively, by painting not just flowers but also fruit. There is a great deal of strength and energy in this painting. Based on the corner of the table, a recurring motif in Asselin's work, the composition seems to suggest that the fish and lobsters have just been released from the fisherman's basket on the right. The animation and movement are skilfully conveyed. Finally, the harmony of cool colours reinforces this dramatic effect.
Once again, the artist asserts an original modernity within the classical genre of still life.

Maurice Asselin was born on June 24, 1882 in Orléans. He was a student of Fernand Cormon at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts but he compensated for academic teaching, which he disliked, with in-depth observation of Paul Cézanne and the Impressionists at the Luxembourg Museum and the Louvre.
Soon there were his first participations in Parisian exhibitions, the Salon des Indépendants in 1906 and the Salon d'Automne in 1907 (He became a member of the jury in 1910).
Asselin first met the writer Pierre Mac Orlan in 1910 in Moëlan-sur-Mer, and a long friendship followed.
Mac Orlan writes in his memoirs of the summer activities of Maurice Asselin and his painter friends Ricardo Florès, Émile Jourdan and Jacques Vaillant in Brigneau-en-Moëlan at La Mère Bacon “a small fishing inn perched on a rock, located at the entrance of the pier, which it overlooked".
In 1912, art critic André Salmon described Maurice Asselin as “one of the young painters most likely to succeed.”
That year also saw the first of the artist's many trips to London, with his first solo exhibition in February 1913. Between 1914 and 1916 he was the closest friend of Walter Sickert, for a time sharing the the latter's apartment in Red Lion Square. In the monthly column that Sickert wrote at the time in the Burlington Magazine, in December 1915, he made a comparative study of the paintings of Asselin and Roger Fry, which concluded that Asselin was superior. Each of the two artists painted the portrait of the other; the portrait of Asselin painted in 1915 by Sickert is now part of the collections of the Potteries Museum & Art Gallery in Stoke-on-Trent, while Asselin kept his “Portrait of Walter Sickert” at his home in Montmartre and later in Neuilly- on the Seine .
Asselin also stayed in Ashford in 1915 with another painter friend, Ludovic-Rodo Pissarro.
He was also close to Albert Marquet, their artistic companionship is evident in their way of composing and painting.
Maurice Asselin married Paton on September 17, 1919, a marriage which gave birth to three sons, Bernard in 1922, Jean in 1923 and Georges in 1925, and introduced the theme of motherhood into his work.
He died at his home in Neuilly on September 27, 1947.
“A beautiful work must, by its arrangement, its rhythm, the choice of the elements which compose it, satisfy the refined man, and, by the impression of life it gives off, move the simplest man. » – Maurice Asselin