A landscape in dazzling light by Henry Gérard depicting a Mediterranean village facing the sea, dated 1903. A work that well reflects the painter's quest for light.

Oil on canvas
Signed and dated lower right
Dimensions: 59,5 x 72 cm
With frame: 81,5 x 94,5 cm

Price: EUR 3500

“Serenity bursts forth from these daily winks, always with a beautiful balance in the composition, light and color”

Henry Gérard, an unclassifiable painter. An art made of light and joy.

An unclassifiable painter, he followed the pictorial developments of his time. His first presentations at the Salons of the Artistic Union of Toulouse were landscapes influenced by the Impressionists. However, when the opportunity arose to exhibit his paintings at the Salon des artistes français in Paris, he returned to a much more classical style.
Bibliography
Henri Paul Gérard was born in Toulouse and died in Martigues, is a French post-impressionist painter. He slightly changes his first name to adopt his artist name Henry Gérard with which he will sign his paintings and will be known in artistic circles.

After attending high school in Toulouse, he enrolled as a free auditor at the school of fine arts in his hometown.

Coming from a bourgeois family, his fortune allowed him to live according to his tastes. He then decided to devote himself to graphic art by agreeing to follow his Toulouse friends to Paris, among them Henri Martin, Paul Gervais, Henri Rachou, François Gauzi. He met Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, of whom he painted a portrait. He was a student of Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre.

Having completed this apprenticeship, he returned to Toulouse where he had a studio built on Rue du Japon. In 1899, he and his friends gave an exhibition of his works there, which was greatly appreciated by Toulouse art lovers.

He married for the first time, in Toulouse on June 1, 1889, Étiennette Marie Laure Malidat. Their union did not last and their separation was pronounced in 1895. This end of the century marked a turning point in the life of Henry Gérard. This family breakup and the attraction of painters for Provence, contributed to pushing him to set up his easel on the banks of the Berre pond, in Martigues.

In 1901, he acquired a large property overlooking the Etang de Berre, on which he had a residence built, the Villa Khariessa, which would become both his workplace and a haven for his friends. In 1905, he married Joséphine Thérèse Bastin, a renowned singer, for the second time. They both led an intense social life in their Villa Khariessa, where Henry Gérard received his friends, mainly artists and people from high society.

Until his death on August 12, 1925, he continued to paint with charm and a sensibility full of voluptuousness, the sunny and changing landscapes of Martigues and Provence. He is buried in the Terre-Cabade cemetery in Toulouse.

Exhibition

Henry Gérard exhibited from 1886 at the Union artistique de Toulouse, at the Salon des Artistes français in Paris (mention in 1904), at the Salon de la Libre Esthétique in Brussels, at the Salon des Artistes méridionaux, at the Exposition d'Art moderne des Artistes latins in 1921, marking his last presence under the walls.
Three exhibitions have been dedicated to him in recent years: Martigues in 2010 and 2015 – La Côte Saint-André in 2016. The Lavaur Museum will exhibit some of his paintings as well as the Villa Khariessa in 2017.

Museums

• Toulouse, Augustins museum.

• Martigues, Ziem museum

 Source

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Gérard

https://www.henry-gerard.net/_files/ugd/