The See By Michel Pourteyron

A very large oil on canvas, measuring 100 cm x 81 cm, signed in the lower right corner by M. Pourteyron. Although undated, the painting can be attributed to his "Marseille period," around 1970. Michel Pourteyron was born in 1938 in Castillon-la-Bataille. The grandson of a blacksmith and son of a pork butcher, he spent his childhood in his native town, surrounded by vineyards. When his grandmother gave him his first set of paints at the age of ten, he discovered a true source of joy. This marked the beginning of a vocation that led him, in 1952, to the School of Decorative Arts and Applied Arts. Life in Paris proved difficult, and he had to take on half a dozen different jobs just to make ends meet—working as a porter at Les Halles market, among other roles—while selling his early oil paintings backstage at the Lido. In the late 1950s, he moved to Roquevaire, in Provence, to be with the woman he loved. He began painting portraits of children, and success soon followed; his works were selected by the Musée Cantini for French exhibitions held in Kobe, Japan, and Haifa, Israel
His encounter with Ambrogiani proved decisive for his painting style, which came to feature thick paint, vivid colors, and impasto applied with great intensity. Ambrogiani introduced Pourteyron to Jean Giono, who became his friend and commissioned him to illustrate his notebooks. In 1964, Michel Pourteyron won the Grand Prix de Cassis, as well as the coveted "Grand Prix de l'Oursin" in Carry-le-Rouet. Emboldened by this success, he settled in the heart of Marseille, near the port, on the Cours d'Estienne d'Orves—a hub for artists, journalists, and art critics. Adopting an expressionist approach, he arranged graphic elements to create a sense of shock, characterized by spirited bursts of material and rough impasto, deliberately eschewing anything merely "pretty." Pourteyron thrust his work directly into the viewer's face. Following his exposure to the art of Appel, Corneille, and Jorn in the early 1970s, he assimilated the influence of the CoBrA movement and shifted toward abstraction.
He returned to the Gironde region, where he passed away in 2011. The Galerie Guardia in Le Castellet pays ongoing tribute to him through exhibitions. Free shipping within the European Union; €350 for international shipping.