Léon Detroy (1857 – 1955) - The Yellow Bouquet

Oil on canvas signed lower right.
Dimensions: 65 x 46 cm, with frame 80 x 61 cm.

Two old exhibition labels on the back: -"Galerie Michel Boutin-Galerie Saint Honoré-Paris -
"Galerie Denise Valtat"-Rue de la Boetie-Paris. "
"An enchantment emanates from the canvases of Léon Detroy, subtle and perceptible to those who feel the beauty of such scholarly simplicity"

Leon Detroy first of all endeavored to reproduce landscapes with rich nuances, but the still lifes will gradually take shape. impose as a major aspect of his work. The painter gives us here a colorful bouquet; vibrant, luminous and cheerful canvas. Pretty color harmonies testify to the painter's qualities as a colorist. It is the vision of a happy art to which he aspired.

Born into a cultured bourgeois family, Léon Detroy entered the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris at the age of 21 in the studio of Jean Paul Laurens. This sensitive artist was very early attracted by landscapes. He settled as soon as he left the Parisian Beaux-Arts in the Creuse valley, where landscape painters were already flourishing, including Monet, who became his friend. He shares with Armand Guillaumin the title of master of Crozant.
A little younger than the great Impressionists, he benefited from the path opened up by Monet, Pissaro, Sisley. Nevertheless, Léon Detroy is freed from all influences, he forges an uncompromising personal painting and his greatest successes owe their power to his audacious and singular technique.
An explosive mixture of divided touches and monochrome flat areas.
He was always faithful to the Creuse valley with its changing landscapes of rich nuances. This anchorage serves as a refuge for him between his many trips from Northern Europe to Northern Africa via Italy, and in France, from the South to Brittany. He was highly appreciated by critics but also by his fellow painters and friends, E. Vuillard, P. Bonnard, EO Friez, L. Anquetin.
He knew how to move away from impressionism to develop a personal aesthetic, a subtle balance of audacity and moderation.
Having as little need for glory as for money, Détroy always kept away from the commercial circuit and too few shipments to Salons and personal exhibitions resulted in a poor representation of the painter in museums.
A catalog raisonné as well as a book is currently being prepared on the artist.

Museum: Chateauroux

Bibliography: Bénézit, Dictionary of the little masters of painting by Gérald Schurr and Pierre Cabanne – The school of Crozant the painters of La Creuse and Gargilesse by Christophe Ramex. Leon Detroy Category