Jean Puy

See also: Puy

Jean Puy (November 7th 1876 - March 6th 1960) is a painter current fauvist.

Born with Roanne in 1876, it arrives almost by chance at painting little before 20 years and quickly becomes its slave about it and its life devotes to it.

After having begun its artistic studies with Lyon, it has a presentiment of very quickly that all occurs to Paris where it settles since 1899; it is the Camillo academy where ensign Eugene Carrière which leaves him the most tangible memories on the didactic and friendly levels. It meets there Derain and Matisse for which creates for itself an immediate sympathy followed by a long friendship.

At the beginning of the century, it is made known of the public to the Salon of Independent the and with the Salon of autumn of 1905 when Ambroise Vollard buys to him his production for the six years to come, it divides the ogee mouldings at the sides of those about which one speaks: Matisse, Derain, Marquet, Manguin, Camoin, etc Of course, in 1905 Jean Puy shares with them the outraged clamors of the press commenting on “famous” the Salon of Fall and becomes thus one of those which one calls Fauves.

Of the famous friends or then the fame of a group

During its first Parisian years, enthusiastic and curious about all, with his friends of the group Moreau it tries out and shares ideas and common pictorial research gathered in a work in workshop of one or the other around the same model. There can nevertheless assimilate the influences and remain personal. First of all bold it presents a contrasted, high painting colors, with the forms simplified in a frank and broad technique where it appears often close to its contemporaries: Matisse, Derain, Gauguin and attracted by Cézanne, their “Master with all” according to Matisse, in the construction of the forms by the color. After one period of pictorial ardor where it appears among the innovators, it forsakes works with character of outline or single subject to move towards more succeeded and studied compositions, where the decoration takes a broader place.

the “foal” of a large merchant of Paris

Between 1900 and 1905 for the young artist comes a fast success, following the exposures, with Independent, the Salon of Fall and at Berthe Weill the “small Weill Mother” who believes in the young talents. Since 1905, with its entry at Vollard, one of the large merchants of tables, notoriety follows. For a young painter, being presented to Ambroise Vollard is an honor, in being noticed and selected is the apotheosis. Via Vollard, charged by the large Russian collectors with choosing works more in sight among the modern movements, of the tables of Jean Puy join the Muscovite palate of Chtouchkine, one of the most informed collectors of its time, which since 1891 assembles the most extraordinary collection of French painting and Morosov. Via Vollard, Jean Puy between also in the collection of Hahnloser cash among the most dedicated propagandists of French art in Swiss. Little concerned about this glory, about the years 1907-1910, it decides to be released from the painting of avant-garde and to be unaware of all the new pictorial systems. Without speaking about clear date nor of rupture, at this time and little by little, it handles more readily the values, the nuances and modelled to arrive to balanced philosopher's stones of the years 1910-14.

an independent painter

Jean Puy is an independent painter; since its beginnings, it follows its own way without letting itself influence and be worried by intellectual concerns of his friends. Impressionist one moment, pointillist one moment, it becomes fawn-coloured some time without overflow i.e. without reaching the deformation which it regards as an excess in his friends. The way that this independent fixes as in front of being his is determined by an intense love of the life, reality and nature. Faithful to nature, without subjecting itself to it, it does not want to move away some and makes it most completely possible in all its variations. It is through a nature transformed by the idea and the feeling that Jean Puy transmits the human emotion through the concrete one and reality. Driven by a preexistent directing wire before the First World War, it gently slips towards a painting intimist orchestrated into a symphony of pink private individual in Jean Puy, painting which resembles a chamber music as George Besson will say it.

Places of exposure of works

Museum Faure of Aix-the-Baths, (Savoy) France

External sources/Bonds

Official site Jean Puy

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