Provençal Landscape, Dated 1979 - Jean-pierre Capron (1921–1997)

Oil on canvas signed “Jean-Pierre Capron” (1921–1997) in the lower right corner, depicting a Provençal landscape. Dated 1979, in its original frame. Dimensions: 67 x 58 cm (with frame); 53.5 x 44 cm (viewable area); 55 x 46 cm (stretcher).

Jean-Pierre Capron was an artist of the École de Paris, born on August 4, 1921, in Cannes. He studied architecture in Lausanne (his grandfather was an architect) and then devoted himself to painting beginning in 1945.

In fact, he joined Eugène Narbonne’s studio at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, where his classmate was Bernard Buffet, with whom he formed a lasting friendship (he would even serve as a witness at Buffet’s wedding to Annabel Schwob in 1958). In 1950, he exhibited for the first time in Paris, at the Visconti Gallery, where the curator of the Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris, Jean Cassou, acquired one of his works. Winner of the Conte-Carrière Prize in 1951, he was selected the following year for the Critics’ Prize and the Young Painters’ Prize. From then on, Capron exhibited regularly in Paris (at the Drouant-David and later the Drouant galleries) and participated in numerous international exhibitions. His American career began in 1961 at the Pomeroy Gallery in San Francisco, followed by exhibitions in Chicago (1965) and New York (1966). Beginning in 1968, his works circulated between France, the United States, and Japan, where he exhibited at the Nichido Gallery and later at the Taménaga Gallery. Starting in 1970, he became one of the permanent artists at the Maurice Garnier Gallery in Paris alongside painters such as Buffet, Jansem, and Michel de Gallard.

René Huyghe and Jean Rudel place Jean-Pierre Capron, along with Claude Venard, Francis Tailleux, Bernard Lorjou, Jean-Jacques Morvan, and Raymond Guerrier among the artists who, like Georges Rohner, were united by their commitment to an “expressive realism,” without necessarily adhering to the same style. They were not all that far removed from an expressionist realism for which Belgium remained a major center, at a time when officially socialist countries were more committed to a “descriptive” realism.”

His travels and exhibitions continued in New York, Houston, Montreal (Martal Gallery), and Chicago, where the Wally Findlay Gallery represented him beginning in 1979. Capron also produced several lithographs for *Vision Nouvelle* and joined the Guigné Gallery in Paris in 1985. He subsequently exhibited at the Hénot Gallery in Enghien-les-Bains (1993) and La Rochelle (1996).

He passed away in July 1997, leaving behind a body of work characterized by a melancholic atmosphere and a unique vision of quiet, urban landscapes.

Sources: https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Pierre_Capron; https://www.galeriedartxxesiecle.art/nos-artistes/jean-pierre-capron-1921-1997