Paris 1920 - Place Saint-michel By Eugène Véder (1876-1936) / Drawing

Superb testimony to the vanished Paris, this remarkable view of Place Saint-Michel in the heart of the Latin Quarter captures with rare accuracy the atmosphere of 1920s Paris.
Eugène Véder, a veritable chronicler of Parisian streets, delivers here a vivid and deeply evocative scene: the discreet animation of passers-by, the monumentality of the architecture and above all that detail that has become historic today, the bus driver still operating the crank to start his vehicle, a tasty detail that inscribes the work in a bygone and fascinating era.

The drawing reveals all of Véder's mastery of the art of line and observation.The charcoal, nervous and precise, elegantly renders the imposing volumes of the facades of Place Saint-Michel, while the silhouettes, sketched with spontaneity, give the composition immediate life. The artist particularly excels in this ability to convey the soul of Paris without descriptive overload, with a graphic freedom that was very modern for his time.

A spiritual pupil of the Parisian street more than of the academies, Eugène Véder belongs to that generation of artists deeply attached to the old popular Paris. Admired from the outset by the great dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, published by Albert Morancé in the prestigious magazine Byblis, acquired by the National Museums for the Chalcographie du Louvre,Véder remains today one of the most sensitive witnesses to the Paris of before the great transformations of the 20th century.

Charcoal drawing in excellent condition, signed lower right.
Sheet size: 34 x 26 cm (unframed)