Brittany

A beautiful watercolor by Edouard Doigneau (Nemours 1865–Paris 1954) depicting a view of Brittany—likely Morbihan—in the 1940s.
Born in Nemours in 1865, Edouard Doigneau entered the École Polytechnique in 1885. In 1900, he decided to become a painter and enrolled at the Académie Julian in Paris, where his teachers included Jules Lefebvre (1834–1912) and Tony Robert-Fleury (1837–1911). After becoming a member of the Artistes Français, he participated in numerous exhibitions in Paris. After World War I, during which he was seriously wounded, he resumed his artistic activities and became a tireless traveler. He traveled throughout France (Fontainebleau, Brittany, the Camargue, and the banks of the Loire), as well as Spain and North Africa. With a regionalist sensibility, he enjoyed sketching picturesque scenes from Brittany or landscapes of Provence in his sketchbooks. However, his views of Morocco and Algeria also earned him a place among the Orientalists. After a long artistic career, he died in Paris in 1954.