émile Lafamé (1934–2017) Still Life At The Table

Emile LAFAMÉ (also known as Emile Bogaert)
(Hazebrouck 1934 – Le Bouscat 2017)
The Table
Oil on canvas
H. 65 cm; W. 81 cm
Signed lower left. Titled and dated on the back, November 1985

Provenance: Private collection, Biarritz

Born in northern France, he left his hometown at age 18 to move to Paris, where he met some of the great names in painting. Among these great figures was Picasso, whom he would encounter regularly and who would push him to study in order to master his technique as fully as possible.

As a student at the Lille School of Fine Arts, he regularly worked with his classmates using charcoal, blending the lines with breadcrumbs. He would greedily devour the leftover crusts and was given the nickname “the hungry one.” What better name for an artist?

Exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Français and the Salon des Indépendants, his style evolved from Expressionism in his early years toward Abstraction, and he concluded his career with Fauvism, applying large swaths of color to the canvas, giving his compositions the feel of paintings by Charles Lapicque.

He died in Le Bouscat, on the outskirts of Bordeaux, after painting numerous French landscapes and scenes of everyday life of all kinds.

In 1983, he spent some time in the northwestern Dordogne, creating several works in Festalemps and Ribérac. Our painting, dated November 1985, depicts a table where fruit and a full pot interact with an open book. Breakfast in the making? In the background, the backs of chairs stand out against the backdrop, as does the stove (a piece of furniture), a silent witness to the scene in shades of pink and blue.