Maurice Asselin (1882-1947) Poppies, 1919

Maurice Asselin (1882-1947) Poppies, 1919, oil on canvas, 73 x 60 cm
With frame 93 x 80 x 4 cm
Signed and dated upper left

Exhibition: "Paris-Montmartre ei suoi artisti 1860-1960" (Bergamo, Italy, Centro Culturale San Bartolomeo, 8-30.11.2003)
Publication: B. Bellini, Paris- Montmartre ei suoi artisti 1860-1960, Galleria d'arte Due Bi, Galleria Michelangelo, Bergamo, 2003, pag. 16

A pupil at Collegio Sante-Croix d'Orléans, he devoted himself fully to painting from 1904, when he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris, in the Cormon studio. He often goes to the Louvre and the Luxembourg Museum to study great artists, especially the works of Impressionist painters. In 1905, he visited Brittany for the first time, then returned in the following years. From these trips he brought back many sketches and drawings which inspired the paintings exhibited on the occasion of his first participation in the Salon des Indépendants (1906) and the Salon d'Automne (1907). In 1908, he left by train for Italy, then traveled between Rome and Florence by bicycle. The following year, his first exhibitions were organized: in Paris, at the Galerie Eugène Blot; in Germany, at the Munich Gallery, with friends of the group "Fauves": Marquet, Vlaminck, Manguin, Puy, Camoin. He travels a lot in London and exhibits several times at Carfax & Co. The outbreak of war surprises him in Ashford, as a guest of his friend Ludovic Rodo Pissarro. Back in Paris, he met the writer Jules Romains and entered the Parisian literary world. In 1919, the “green period” begins: he uses a palette in which greens and blacks clash in perfect harmony, in a permanent contrast of light and shadow. In 1922 the birth of the first child helps to soften his palette, the colors fade and the period of "motherhood" begins which will last until 1925. In 1923 he exhibited for the first time in Tokyo. He resumed his travels: in 1926 he left by car for the South of France and, enchanted by the light of the South, he returned there with his family the following year; from 1930 to 1939, he often returned to Brittany, where he painted with the group of “Painters of Concarneau”; of those years there are magnificent watercolors, with a rapid stroke and vivid colors. At the outbreak of World War II, he loaded all his paintings into his old Ford and with his wife and children he moved to Chalonnes-sur-Loire. Back in Paris, he suffered the hardships of the occupation and his painting hardened. It was the era of "red nudes" and floral arrangements. In 1945, he returned to Pont-Aven for the last time and spent a month at the famous Hôtel de la Poste, with Julia Correleau.

The painting is in good condition.

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