Pierre-Albert Marquet | From Fauvism to Naturalism

Albert Marquet (1875-1947) was a French painter and draughtsman, known for his contributions to the Fauvist movement and later for his naturalistic landscapes.

Marquet was a studio outdoor painter: he painted from his window.

It was in Normandy that he invented his formula of a landscape viewed from high up, away from curious onlookers, with an eye for framing, simplified shapes and a very sure colour sense.

He was one of the Fauves, and for a time his boldness of colour almost matched that of Matisse (his lifelong friend).

However, he soon abandoned Fauvism and turned to a comparatively naturalistic style.

He painted some fine portraits and did a number of powerful female figures (1910-14), but he was primarily a landscapist.

His favourite -eventually almost exclusive- themes were ports and the bridges and quays of Paris, subjects he depicted with unaffected simplicity and great sensitivity to tone.

Marquet was an outstanding draughtsman and from 1925 worked a good deal in watercolour.

He travelled widely and built up an international reputation, but he lived very quietly (he was timid in personality) and refused all honours. | Text Source: The Oxford Dictionary of Art and Artists, Oxford University Press

Best known for his serene coastal landscapes and harbor scenes, Albert Marquet’s paintings reveal a stunning command of light, color, volume and space.

A lifelong friend of Henri Matisse, Marquet rose to prominence painting in the Fauvist style, using expressive colors and formal simplification.

Among the Fauves, however, he was known for a subtler palette, and by his mature period, Marquet had dispensed with pure color altogether in favor of grayed yellows, violets and blues.

Marquet was born in 1875 in Bordeaux, France. He moved to Paris in 1890 to attend the École des Arts Décoratifs, and later to study under Symbolist painter Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts.

During this time, Marquet met Henri Matisse, with whom he developed a close friendship, and exhibited at the Salon des Indépendents.

Alongside Matisse, André Derain, Georges Braque and others, Marquet exhibited at the 1905 Salon d’Automne, at which the term “fauves” (wild beasts) was first coined.

Shortly thereafter, Marquet began traveling extensively along the coasts of Europe and North Africa, where his paintings of the ports and beaches of Normandy, Venice and Algiers evolved toward a tonally harmonious, naturalistic style.

Marquet died in 1947 in La Frette-sur-Seine at the age of 71.

Today, Marquet’s paintings are held in the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Tate Gallery in London, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris and the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. | Text Source: Sotheby's