Henri-Alexandre Sollier

Last updated
Henri-Alexandre Sollier
Born(1896-12-07)7 December 1896
Died1966 (aged 70)
NationalityFrench
Known forPainting

Henri-Alexandre Sollier (born 1896 in Bagnolet, died 1966 in Paris), was a French painter and illustrator .

Contents

Biography

Entering the Académie Julian in 1906, painter, draughtsman and lithographer Henri Sollier, born in Bagnolet, near Paris, on 7 December 1886, graduated to the École des Beaux-Arts in 1908, and worked in the ateliers of François Flameng, and, after 1910, of François Schommer. In spring 1919 he celebrated the victory of the Allies with two eloquently titled paintings, Pour elle! and Par elle !, which he exhibited at the Devambez Gallery in Paris. After the interruption of the First World War a fruitful decade ensued of prizes and awards, enabling him to undertake extensive travels.

Trip to Senegal

In 1920 his first participation at the Salon des Artistes Français achieved a Mention Honorable, together with the Académie des Beaux-Arts Prix Leclercq-Maria Bouland; the following year the Prix de l’Afrique Occidentale Française brought him a travel grant. Sollier set off immediately for French West Africa, to spend three years in Senegal, sending portraits of indigenous peoples – Wolof and Bambara women – to the Pavillon de Marsan and the Salon des Artistes Français, and colourful and exotic market scenes from Dakar. From these bustling centres of trade Sollier brought back portraits of merchants from neighbouring lands, such as the Maure au chapelet, submitted to the 1923 Salon.

Between exoticism and regionalism

On return in 1924 Sollier reserved his African canvases for his regular admirers at the Salon des Artistes Français, while at the Salon d’Automne, as a newcomer, he presented two paintings in settings more familiar to the public: Les tilleuls and Le porche de Chartres. The painter cultivated two themes, the exotic and the regional, at least until 1935, regularly exhibiting canvases inspired by Africa at the Salon de la Société Coloniale des Artistes Français. One of these recalls his secondary activity as an illustrator, exemplified in his poster design for the 1925 Exposition Agricole in Dakar and Saint-Louis. Ten years later Sollier took part in the first Salon de la France d’Outre-Mer (Salon of French Overseas Territories, Paris, Grand-Palais), and in a group show organised in Brussels by the Société Coloniale des Artistes Français. The year 1929 marked Sollier's discovery of Brittany: a stay in Douarnenez, Finistère, won this Africa specialist's heart: the landscapes and deeply traditional people of Brittany offered a different kind of exoticism from his African sojourn.

Joining the Naturalist painting

Sollier did more than just capture the picturesque motifs found in the landscapes of Brittany; he also painted realistic portraits of its inhabitants. In Solitude, winner of a silver medal at the 1930 Salon, Sollier demonstrated his conversion to the naturalist style of the day. His uncompromising portraits of a Breton women echo the social realism of Jules Adler, whose academy Sollier frequented in parallel to his courses at the École des Beaux-Arts. In the 1934 Salon Les aïeux won a gold medal. The composition's compact organisation intensifies the frontal dialogue between the protagonists, who bear a certain family resemblance to the kin of Jean-le-Boiteux, a peasant from Plougasnou (Finistère) portrayed by Jean-François Raffaëlli in 1876. The coppery skin tones and broad brushstrokes that convey the humble condition of Sollier's Aïeux are close to the manner of his contemporary Lucien Simon. Simon's work focused on the Bigouden area of Brittany and showed a strong ethnographic content, as in Procession à Penmar’ch. Taking up the mantle of Courbet’s realism, Lucien Simon and his fellow artists popularised Breton subjects in Paris at the turn of the century.

Sollier in Brittany

In 1933 he went to Bénodet and Sainte-Marine, where Simon continued to paint at the top of the semaphore tower he had been using as a studio since 1902. So had another former member of the Bande noire, André Dauchez, whose views of Finistère are close to Sollier's landscapes from the same period. The two artists evince a similar approach to light, sometimes intense, sometimes muted, following variations in the weather. However, Sollier was often more subtle than his older colleague, and his Brittany landscapes from the 1930s are noteworthy for the delicacy of their unusual pastel effects. From Sainte-Marine, Sollier pushed on to Cornouaille, stopping at Pont-l'Abbé, Loctudy, Lesconil and Penmarc’h, where Lucien Simon painted his Procession. In 1935 Sollier went north to Camaret-sur-Mer, a small fishing port on the Crozon peninsula. The place had been popular with painters ever since Eugène Boudin’s repeated visits there between 1874 and 1880. Among them, Charles Cottet and Georges Lacombe left strongly contrasting representations of the site. Sollier's painting of the rocks at Camaret are a long way from Lacombe's symbolist vision.

Towards new horizons

Finistère was Sollier's favourite part of Brittany, but he also spent time in the Morbihan and along the Côtes d’Armor. There he painted scenes of everyday life, which he exhibited regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français. This longstanding fidelity was rewarded by the success of his Brittany paintings both with the public and with the judges at the Salon, who awarded him a gold medal at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques (Paris) in 1937. That same year Sollier was made a committee and jury member of the Salon des Artistes Français, a distinction to match the degree of his public and official recognition.

During the 1940s, without leaving Brittany, Sollier began to explore new genres and new places. He twice tried mythological painting, immediately winning the Prix James Bertrand for his Hommage à Phidias at the 1944 Salon. The following year he returned to this genre with Naissance d’Aphrodite. This departure from his Breton repertoire was continued by landscapes from the Seine-et-Marne and Burgundy, with a deliberate detour to the village of Murols in Auvergne, which had witnessed whole colonies of landscape artists, from Théodore Rousseau to Victor Charreton. He died in 1966 in Paris, brush in hand.

Works in public institutions

Exhibitions

(non-exhaustive list)

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">René Schützenberger</span> French painter

René-Paul Schützenberger was a French Post-Impressionist painter.

Maison Devambez is the name of a fine printer's firm in Paris. It operated under that name from 1873, when a printing business established by the royal engraver Hippolyte Brasseux in 1826 was acquired by Édouard Devambez. At first the firm specialized in heraldic engraving, engraved letterheads and invitations. Devambez clients included the House of Orléans, the House of Bonaparte and the Élysée Palace. Devambez widened the scope of the business to include advertising and publicity, artists’ prints, luxurious limited edition books, and an important art gallery. The House became recognized as one of the foremost fine engravers in Paris, winning numerous medals and honours. With the artist Édouard Chimot as Editor after the First World War, a series of limited edition art books, employing leading French artists, illustrators and affichistes, reached a high point under the imprimatur A l'Enseigne du Masque d'Or – the Sign of the Golden Mask and with PAN in collaboration with Paul Poiret. Édouard's son, André Devambez, became a famous painter and illustrator after receiving the Prix de Rome.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucien Simon</span> French painter and teacher (1861–1945)

Lucien Joseph Simon was a French painter and teacher born in Paris.

Yolande Ardissone is a French painter. Born in Bueil (Normandy), she studied at the Beaux-Arts and at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in Paris.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Léon Printemps</span> French painter

Léon Printemps was a French artist known best for his work as a portrait and landscape painter.

Lucien Vogt, was an American painter and illustrator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaston Balande</span> French painter and illustrator

Gaston Balande, was a French painter and illustrator.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jules Benoit-Lévy</span> French painter

Jules Benoit-Lévy was a French painter and printmaker.

Simon Joseph Simon-Auguste was a French artist, known for his intimate paintings, mainly portraits, nudes and still lifes. His production is characterized by a calm, intimate feel, and the effective use of glaze.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paul Biva</span> French painter (1851–1900)

Paul Biva was a French painter. His paintings, both Realist, Naturalist in effect, principally represented intricate landscape paintings or elaborate flower settings, much as the work of his older brother, the artist Henri Biva (1848–1929). Paul Biva was a distinguished member of National Horticultural Society of France from 1898 until his untimely death two years later.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Antoine Guillemet</span> French painter

Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Guillemet was a French renowned landscape painter and longtime Jury member of the Salon des Artistes Francais. He was one of the first 19th-century artists to paint modern life, and a pivotal figure in the transition from Realism to Impressionism.

Madeleine Caudel was a French woman landscape painter. Madeleine Caudel was a member of the Société du Salon des Artistes Français.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henri Guinier</span> French painter (1867–1927)

Henri Guinier was a French portrait and landscape painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry d'Estienne</span> French painter

Henry d'Estienne was a French painter and a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Adolphe Pierre Leleux</span> French painter

Adolphe Pierre Leleux was a French painter and illustrator. His brother Armand Leleux was also a painter.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">André Dauchez</span> French painter

André Eugène Dauchez, born in Paris, was a French painter, watercolourist, pastellist, engraver, draughtsman and illustrator known for landscapes, waterscapes and seascapes.

Constantin Georges Macris was a French painter of Greek origin.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Maurice Asselin</span> French painter and engraver (1882–1947)

Maurice Paul Jean Asselin was a French painter, watercolourist, printmaker, lithographer, engraver and illustrator, associated with the School of Paris. He is best known for still lifes and nudes. Other recurring themes in his work are motherhood, and the landscapes and seascapes of Brittany. He also worked as a book illustrator, particularly in the 1920s. His personal style was characterised by subdued colours, sensitive brushwork and a strong sense of composition and design.

Jeanne-Marie Barbey, also known as Louise Jeanne Marie Barbée was a French artist, painter and photographer, whose work frequently concentrated on Brittany.

References