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General Collection |
Achille Emile
Othon Friesz
French, 1879-1949
Paysage
Provencal, 1914
oil on canvas
26” x 22”
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In 1903, at the age of 24, Othon Friesz
(o-ton freeze) ended his formal education and began painting
in
the Impressionist style. Under the influence of Matisse, in 1905
he adopted the vivid, anti-naturalistic palette of the Fauve
painters.
Freisz and Matisse rented studios in the same building from 1905
– 1908.
It
was while painting with Georges Braque in the summer of 1907
that he turned to
the strong pictorial construction of Cezanne. Friesz felt
as if he had been sacrificed to Fauvism’s coloristic excesses,
though his finest painting was from his Fauve period. Like Cezanne,
he tried to establish the connections between contemporary,
avant-garde, and classical painting.
Raoul
Dufy, like Braque, described Friesz as ‘the most gifted
painter of our generation’ in 1934. Although he received
much honor by the end of his life, he never attained the status
of some
of his colleagues.
A gift from the estate of Germaine Bree, PhD. |
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