Marcel Mouly, (1918 2008) The Painter And His Model, Oil On Canvas

- Marcel Mouly (1918-2008), the painter and his model, hst, sbd, dated 1983, dimensions without frame 50/60cm Biography Marcel Mouly was born in the 17th arrondissement of Paris2. He was 5 years old when his parents, of modest means (his father was a blacksmith), settled in Place Félix-Faure where he remained until his majority. In 1931, the port of Le Havre inspired his first drawings. It was on this same date (he was then 13 years old), recounts Gisèle d'Assailly, that he left primary school in order to become an apprentice and thus support his parents financially: "successively a newspaper seller, a dental mechanic , wine merchant and wine delivery man; in 1935, his boss, a former dramatic actor who also painted, encouraged him to have fun with a brush in hand and Mouly, running out of white surfaces, used the walls of his bedroom, which he decorated with exotic themes using alternately charcoal and ripolin”3. In 1935, he enrolled in evening classes with André Auclair at the Beaux-Arts workshops at 80, Boulevard du Montparnasse3. From 1938 to 1940, Marcel Mouly did his military service in the Navy. He then towed cannons in the Cotentin peninsula. During the harsh winter of 1938-1939, he fell seriously ill and, to relieve the hospital during his convalescence, he helped the nurses. Joining Cherbourg, he suffered the bombardments of Abbeville and Amiens. While on leave in Paris, the armistice of June 22, 1940 was signed and he no longer returned to the army. He then exercised a series of makeshift trades (truck driver, carpenter, laborer) and shared a large workshop with a friend in Auteuil3. In 1942, he was caught without permission by the Gestapo making drawings in Houlgate, a very sensitive area. He is suspected with his friend of being a spy. For this reason, they are held incommunicado for 3 months in Fresnes prison, after which they will be cleared and released. He then met Édouard Pignon and lived with this new friend in the studio of the sculptor Chaim Jacob Lipchitz in Boulogne-Billancourt where, in addition to drawing and painting, he devoted himself to modeling terracotta and, in order to earn a living, in pottery3. 1945 (the year he married Sylvana who, of Italian birth, then abandoned singing in favor of mosaics3), 1946 and 1947 marked the launch of his career; he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne, at the Salon de Mai, in the company of Matisse, Picasso, Fernand Léger, Édouard Pignon, Maurice Estève, Manessier, Jean Bazaine, Gustave Singier, Jean Le Moal and Marcel Burtin. In 1946, he moved to La Ruche (2, Passage de Dantzig), meeting Pablo Picasso and Constantin Brâncuși. A hard worker, he is from morning to evening in front of his easel, interspersed with travels during which he executes drawings or sketches that will fuel his inspiration throughout his life. In 1950 he began a long series of personal exhibitions, in France and around the world, which ended with that of 2007, rue Saint-Honoré in Paris. He was selected for the Prix de la Critique in 1956 and 19574. Marcel Mouly was one of the nine founding members in 1982 - with Jean Bertholle, Roland Bierge, Jack Chambrin, Paul Charlot, Jean Cornu, Albert Lauraro, Jean Marzelle and Roger Montané - from the Association 109 which, from 1983, was the initiator of the Biennale 109, a new annual event claiming to be a break with the Salon d'Automne5. Marcel Mouly died on January 7, 2008 in Clamart2.6.