Market scene in Essaouira, Morocco, circa 1930.
Oil on canvas 
Signed lower right
Dimensions: 33 41 cm x
With frame: 49 x 57 cm
 
 In this orientalist painting by Henri Pontoy, the painter set up his easel in Essaouira, Morocco. He depicts the atmosphere of one of the city's markets. The arcades are low and the inner courtyard rectangular; we recognize the architecture of the historic fortified city dating from the end of the 18th century. The painter uses the arches for an unusual framing.
Henri Pontoy, as usual, illuminates the stage with warm and luminous colors; pinks, purples, greens and blues.
He plays with shadow and light and skillfully sculpts his creamy material.
 
 Biography
 Henri Pontoy is an orientalist painter born in Reims. He entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, in the studio of Luc-Olivier Merson. 
He exhibited his paintings at the Salon of the National Society of Fine Arts, the Salon d'Automne, the Salon des Indépendants as well as the Salon of Algerian Orientalist Artists. 
 In 1926, he received a travel grant from the Colonial Society of French Artists which allowed him to travel to North Africa, particularly to Tunisia where he became a member of the Tunisian Salon. 
 The same year, he went to Morocco, which captivated him. He lived for several years around 1930 in Ouarzazate, where he met the painter Jacques Majorelle. He became a professor of arts and literature at the Moulay Idriss high school in Fez for 14 years, while exhibiting regularly at the Derche gallery in Casablanca. 
 In 1947, Jacques Majorelle invited Henry Pontoy to accompany him to Guinea. Together, they traveled through the heavily wooded region of Fouta-Djalon. "Majorelle painted nudes and I painted landscapes."
 He won the Cameroon Prize in 1951. He was the winner of the Grand Prize of the City of Algiers in 1933.
 Henry Pontoy favors outdoor painting in a realistic approach. His fresh, airy palette with warm colors, both in oils and watercolors, has always met with great success. 
 He is one of the last French representatives of Orientalism, which reached its peak in the interwar period.
Henry Pontoy lived in Morocco from 1927 to 1965, when he left the country to settle in Aix-en-Provence, where he died in 1968.
 
Exhibitions
 • Oran, January 1925
• Algiers and Tunis: 1926
• Autumn Salon in Algiers, 1926
• Algiers, 1933, Salon of Algerian orientalist artists
• Algiers, December 1938, Salon of the Artistic Union of North Africa
• Algiers, January 1947, art mirror exhibition
 
Bibliography
• Bénézit Dictionary
• Alfred Rousse, 28th Salon of Algerian Orientalist Artists, 1927.
• Stéphane Richemond, The Salons of Colonial Artists, Editions de l'Amateur, 2003
• Gérald Schurr and Pierre Cabanne, Dictionary of the Little Masters of Painting, Éditions de l'Amateur, 2003.
• Élisabeth Cazenave, The artists of Algeria, dictionary of painters, sculptors, engravers 1830-1962, Éditions Bernard Giovanangeli, 2001.