Léon Félix (1869–1940) Ploumanac'h, Côtes d'Armor, Brittany

Léon Pierre FÉLIX
(Périgueux 1869–1940)
The coast at Ploumanac’h - Brittany
Oil on canvas
H. 46 cm; W. 55 cm
Signed lower left, dated 1901


Provenance: Private collection, Burgundy

Léon Pierre Félix, born in Périgueux, soon moved to the capital to study at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts, where some of his works from 1892 to 1897 are still preserved. He studied under Bonnat, Aviat, Cormon, Tony Robert-Fleury, Merson, and William Bouguereau. He was also a member of the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris beginning in 1894 and served on the jury starting in 1926. He exhibited regularly at this salon, at the Nationale des Beaux-Arts, at the Indépendants, and abroad, not to mention the Salons de Périgueux.


Some of his works, acquired by the French government for the Musée du Luxembourg and the Petit-Palais, were a crowning achievement for him. Today, they can be found at the Musée Bonnat-Helleu in Bayonne, the MAAP in Périgueux, in Perpignan, Melun, the Polish Embassy, Glasgow, the IFAO in Le Cayre, and elsewhere…


An accomplished portraitist, he skillfully integrated his talent for depicting human features and the lightness of movement into scenes of outdoor life. In fact, several of his finest paintings in this style are housed at the Périgueux Museum. A few large-format works resembling set designs have appeared on the art market in recent years, always maintaining an atmosphere reminiscent of Bonnat while also leaning toward the hues and textures characteristic of the Symbolists.


In 1935, Félix won the Indochina Prize, and he traveled there shortly thereafter. He brought back numerous drawings depicting traditional Cambodian and Vietnamese attire, as well as painted compositions of local life and architecture, which he exhibited and sold upon his return to France.


He won a third-class medal at the Salon in 1898, an honorable mention at the 1900 World’s Fair in Paris, and the Marie-Bashkirtseff Prize in 1908. He was appointed Official Painter to the Navy in 1910 and made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1914. He passed away at his home on Rue Chanzy in Périgueux in 1940.


While Félix is considered a great portraitist, no one can overlook his talents as a landscape painter. Many of his portraits were painted en plein air, bathed in shimmering light, giving the subjects a sense of setting and reality. Léon Félix did not hesitate to travel throughout the Périgord and sometimes the Lot region to paint picturesque views of places that were often overlooked by others. He knew how to bring them to life through his masterful technique, which had earned him numerous awards.

This painting, created relatively early in Félix’s career, breaks new ground in his art. Not only because of the location—since it is the only work set in Brittany cataloged to date—but also because of the subject itself, rendered with broad brushstrokes in the manner of a sketch. This canvas, painted on a misty and undoubtedly wintry day, depicts the coastline of Ploumanac’h with its rounded rocks.