" Brazzaville 1937 " Simone Marret-clayet

Simone MARRET- CLEYET ( 1915 -

Simone Marret-Cleyet, painter, was born on January 14, 1915 in Напої, Tonkin. Her father, Claudius Marret-Cleyet, was a military quartermaster. On her mother's side, Estelle Daguerre, Simone descends from a family with many overseas attachments, whether to La Réunion, where one of her great-grandmothers, Eléonore Redibe, was a slave, or to New Caledonia, where her great-grandfather Camille Boyer settled in1870.

Throughout her childhood and adolescence, Simone alternated between France and Africa, in Cameroon, Senegal and Congo Brazzaville, depending on her father's postings. She passed her baccalaureate in Dakar in 1933. She studied drawing and painting in various workshops, and also took classes with Miller Ranson. She exhibited several times at the Salon des indépendants and in Brazzaville.

Married in January 1939 to Lucien Gaillard, with whom she had four children, Simone returned to Senegal after the war, until 1958.

In her painting and drawings, we can distinguish several periods: Africanist subjects in her youth and in the 50s, portraits, especially of families, paintings on the motif (Nîmes and travel memories...)

Simone celebrated her 100th birthday at the beginning of

2015. She lives in Pont-de Beauvoisin, the cradle of her paternal family, and continues to paint.

Simone's life has always been one of painting.

Oil on panel signed lower center located and dated "Brazzavile 1937"

Size: 50 x 61 cm

With original Palm tree frame: 56 x 67 cm