Gouache stencil 'Le Mont Saint-Michel' by Marcel Gaillard

Marcel Gaillard, born in Abbeville in 1886 and died in Liesville-sur-Douve in 1947, is the author of the work entitled "Le Mont Saint-Michel". This piece is a gouache stencil on paper, measuring 50 x 32 cm. The work is signed lower left by the artist.
Originally from Normandy, Marcel Gaillard trained at the Beaux-Arts in Rouen and arrived in Paris in 1906. Bohemian, he easily integrated into a group of students from the Latin Quarter familiar with the Luxembourg Gardens. The same year the Luxembourg counterfeiters affair broke out. Due to his presence at the crime scene, the police searched for him and arrested him in Dieppe. His departure from Paris accuses him and condemns him to seven months of incarceration. After a legal dismissal, he made a living painting postcards of Breton views and gouaches which he sold to café terraces. Developed during this period, the gouache stencil technique followed the artist throughout his career, as evidenced by the drawing presented to you.
Shortly after, our adventurous artist was sought again by the police and had to flee to Belgium. Arrested then exonerated a second time, he then became a member of the independents and exhibited in 1913 at the Salon d'Automne.

After the First World War, in 1918 he founded the Jeune Peinture Française group and organized a first exhibition at the Manzi gallery alongside Auguste Renoir and Pierre Bonnard. In 1920, Gaillard obtained the French Equatorial Africa Prize and a travel grant which allowed him to discover the Congo and Sudan, he then spent a stay in Algeria. These African adventures opened the doors to the colonial art popular in Paris and Marseille. He was chosen to decorate the tea room of the Grands Magasins du Louvre for which he created a huge diorama. Towards the end of his life in 1943, he was hosted in Normandy by a priest for whom he undertook the frescoes of the Saint-Martin church in Liesville-sur-Douve, where he now rests.
 

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