Mathurin Meheut Back From Fishing Douarnenz- Brittany

Mathurin Méheut was born into a family of artisans. In 1896, he began an apprenticeship in Lamballe with Mathurin Guernion, house painter; from there are known his first dated drawings. He entered the Regional School of Fine Arts in Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) in 1898 and stayed for a month in Paris in 1900. In 1902, at the end of his studies in Rennes, he moved to Paris . He works for the magazine Art et Décoration and publishes illustrations on fish and corals. At the same time, he enrolled at the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris. He did his military service from 1903 to 1904 in Saint-Lô. In 1905, he married Marguerite Rouja in Le Mans. The couple settled in Paris in the 15th arrondissement, at 45, rue Falguière. Their daughter Maryvonne was born in 1908. From 1910 to 1912, he stayed and worked at the Roscoff biological station, where he could observe and draw the marine environment in a scientific context. It was there that he created the bases for the book Étude de la mer 1913-1914 under the direction of Maurice Pillard (known as Verneuil). An exhibition dedicated to him at the Museum of Decorative Arts in Paris in 1913 brought together 450 works on marine fauna and flora produced in Roscoff. The magazine L'Illustration published several of his paintings in color. The Oceanographic Museum of Monaco and the Luxembourg Museum in Paris acquire some of his works. Méheut is the winner of the “Bursary around the world” awarded by the Albert-Kahn Foundation. He was thus able to travel to Hawaii and then to Japan, where his stay was interrupted by the mobilization due to the First World War. Méheut returned to France and was incorporated into the 136th infantry regiment of Arras in October, then from 1916 to 1917, he was seconded to the topographic and cartographic service in Sainte-Menehould and then in Bergues. There he produced his War Sketches showing life in the trenches. He was demobilized in 1919. Méheut resumed his professorship at the Ecole Boulle in Paris until 1928 after having briefly taught at the Estienne school in Paris in 1921. After the armistice, he returned to his native Brittany and exercised decorator and illustrator professions. Became official painter of the Navy in 1921, Méheut demonstrated a diversified activity: between 1924 and 1935, he participated in the decoration of nine liners including the Normandie. He is also a book illustrator, collaborates as a ceramist for the Henriot faience factory in Quimper. Mathurin Méheut made several stays with Albert Kahn in 1924. He refused to join the Seiz Breur movement. He met Yvonne Jean-Haffen in 1925. She became one of his students. 150 of the many letters he wrote to her between 1926 and 1954 were published in 2018 In 1926, he joined the Society of Decorative Artists and produced his first ceramics for the Manufacture nationale de Sèvres in 1927. In 1936, he met the painter Yves Floc'h in the company of Yvonne Jean-Haffen at the Sainte-Anne-la-Palud chapel. Witness of an era, passionate about the people and landscapes of his native province, he criss-crossed Brittany from Rennes to Dinan, from Roscoff to Saint-Guénolé in Bigouden country, leaving an abundant production and a precise and multifaceted testimony of life. Breton in his time. He taught from 1940 to 1944 at the School of Fine Arts in Rennes and counted among his students artists such as the glass painter Joseph Archepel, the mural painter and animation filmmaker Frédéric Back, the painter Geoffroy Dauvergne, the sculptor Roland Guillaumel , the painters Roger Marage, Jean-Marie Martin. A Mathurin-Méheut museum was created in Lamballe, his birthplace, inside a half-timbered house from the 15th century, known as the “Maison du Bourreau”. This museum keeps about 5,000 of his works. The museum is transferred to the national stud farm in the city. On June 18, 2022, the museum welcomes its first visitors and presents 260 works on an exhibition area of 400 m2 Mathurin Méheut is elected to the Marine Academy in 1956 and dies in Paris on February 22, 1958. He is buried in Paris in the Montparnasse cemetery