Pierre Dubreuil the Loire at Tours and Chenonceau castle

Large painting view of Tours ,the Loire and the Chateau de Chennoceau, an unusual and surprising view by this excellent painter Pierre Dubreuil
Pierre Dubreuil, born in Quimper (Finistère) on September 8, 1891, died in Paris on February 17, 1970, was a French painter and engraver whose work straddles the border between figurative and abstract art.

Biography

Pierre Dubreuil lost his father when he was a year old; his mother left Finistère and moved closer to her family in Morbihan, where he "spent his childhood and adolescence. After graduating from the Lycée de Vannes at the age of sixteen, he began to paint and draw, then left Brittany for Paris in 1907, where he settled in the Montparnasse district. After a trimester at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and on the advice of Per Krogh, Dubreuil joined Henri Matisse's studio in 1909, where he learned about the Fauves and Cubists, and studied painting and sculpture: "Painting and drawing in the mornings, modeling in the afternoons, he was a regular at the studio until its dissolution in the spring of 1912, when he was mobilized until July 1919. In the meantime, he married Elvire Ventri, of Italian origin, in 1913.
In Montparnasse, he frequented various studios and academies, where he met Marcel Gromaire, Jules Pascin and Per Krohg, who were to become his friends. A fruitful period followed, during which he produced mainly still lifes, punctuated by major purchases from Galerie Barbazanges 6 hODEBERT The 1920s were a prolific period: he painted Paris, Brittany and portraits. Demobilized, he was able to exhibit from 1921 onwards at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne, of which he became a member the same year; he also exhibited at the Galerie Georges Petit in Les Tuilerie at Berhte Weil's. He took part in several group exhibitions, notably in Japan, where the Tokyo Museum acquired one of his portraits4. He was also introduced to engraving, which was to play a decisive role in his work through his illustrations.
We owe him the mural decoration of the Paimpol Navigation School; he worked on this project with Jean Emile Laboureur and Jean Frélaut. Other works by this modernist, so free from any modernist tyranny, include "Concert champêtre" and "Repos de Moissonneurs". He was one of the thirty or so Montparnasse artists who painted the columns of the Brasserie de la Coupole for its inauguration in 1927, along with Auguste Clergé, David Seifert and Jules EMile Zingg.
He exhibited two paintings at the 1927 Salon des Indépendants and, in 1929, at the Salon des Tuileries, a Nude and Le Train de ceinture.
"In 1930, he collaborates with his friend Gino Sévérini on the illustration of a Spanish edition of Paul Valéry's Cimetière marin.
An engraver who became a member of the Peintres-Graveurs Indépendants and Peintres Graveurs Français in 1935, he devoted himself to engraving, while continuing to exhibit his paintings at the Salon des Tuileries, with Eugène Druel and in the magazine Temps Présent. He produced a number of plates sought after by enthusiasts, and worked extensively on book illustrations, including :

La Chaumière indienne by Bernardin de Saint-Pierre - Henri Babou, Paris 1930
La Double Maîtresse, by Henri de Régnier, published by Trianon, 1930
Fébronie by Marcel Prévost - Le Livre de demain, Fayard, Paris 1941
Nichina by Hugues Rebell
Sonnets pour Marie by Pierre de Ronsard3.

In 1939, he produced tapestry cartoons for the Gobelins, entitled Les Quatre parties du Monde (The Four Parts of the World), but the Second World War prevented him from completing this project2. "Between 1940 and 1942, he spent some time in Aubusson, where, at the request of the Beaux-Arts department, he created cartoons for the revival of tapestry, in the company of his friends Jean Lurçat and Marcel Gromaire8. In 1945, back in Paris after a stay in Grenoble, he was elected vice-president of the Peintres-Graveurs français. He illustrated numerous works.2
First grandson of Pierre Dubreuil and son of Carmen and Maurice André (himself Dubreuil's son-in-law), he was introduced to tapestry at Aubusson and became a master of contemporary tapestry (gold medal at the Brussels International Exhibition in 1950, state commission for the French pavilion).
"In the 1950s, he exhibited at the Maurice André gallery, the Charpentier gallery, the Peintres-Graveurs and the Salon d'Automne, where he was elected to the committee in 1953. In 1958, he was unanimously elected President of the Peintres-Graveurs français2."
"Until his death in 1970, he divided his life between his studio at the Villa Brune in Paris and his home on the Golfe du Morbihan. Every year, he exhibited with the Peintres-Graveurs at the Bibliothèque nationale and at the Salon d'Automne, and also continued his activities as artistic advisor to the Chalcographie du Louvre2,3."

Works

"Pierre Dubreuil's oeuvre comprises 900 to 1,000 canvases, over 600 engravings (copper, wood, a few lithographs), numerous drawings and watercolors, a few pastel paintings, and a number of paintings by other artists.

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