Les Huîtres

20th-century French School oil on canvas signed Pierre Bompard (1890-1962). The work has texture to the touch.

A rare modern school painting with brisk brushstrokes of different volumes. The technique is successful in its working of shadows and reflections, with the luminosity diffusing a perfectly calibrated veil of light to exhibit the complexity of the seafood. Certain shapes and perspectives flirt with cubism, like this table at impossible angles. However, realism is reflected in the palette of colors. A work full of contradictions that make it a unique still life.

About the artist: Pierre Bompard was a French painter born in Verdun (northeast) on June 28, 1890. He died in Paris on June 13, 1962. Bompard trained at the Julian Academy (Paris) before joining the school of Fine Arts in the capital where he rubbed shoulders with future greats such as as Georges Braque, André Dunoyer de Segonzac and Raymond Legueult.

Fame arose quickly for Bompard. In addition to the exhibitions in major Parisian salons, he was a heavily commissioned artist of the period. Notably, he was selected to redecorate the Hôtel Lutetia and the Collège de France, and soon after was awarded The Legion of Honor.

In parallel to his success in Paris, he travelled frequently to Brittany where he explored painting the maritime scene. His talent for the subject allowed him to be appointed Official Painter of the Navy in 1936, when he was 46 years old. This title allowed him to travel freely with the Navy as a resident artist. Similar to Paul Gaugin, Bompard left France for Tahiti. He paid homage to Gaugin in Polynesia by rehabilitating his faded tomb into a funerary stone work of art made of Polynesian volcanic rock - a moving tribute from one painter to another.

• Overall Size: 16.1" x 22.8" / 41cm x 58cm.
  
• Size without the frame: 14.9" x 21.6" / 38cm x 55cm.
  
• Country: France. 
  
• Signed: Pierre Bompard (1890-1962). 
• Date: Early 20th century.
• Condition: The canvas has wear in its pictorial layer concentrated on the edges. The frame is a little bare in the lower right corner where two sides create a gap.
  
• Materials: Oil on a stretched canvas with a wood frame.
• Shipping: Free global shipping to the US and Europe. A surcharge is added for Australia and New Zealand, and Asia.