18 January 2017

Hélène Rémond writes:

A new art exhibition opened on 6 December 2016 and will run until 10 April 2017 at Atelier Grognard located in Rueil-Malmaison, west of Paris. It has been made possible due to loans from different museums: Musée d’Orsay, Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Musée du Domaine départemental de Sceaux , Musée de Nogent-sur-Marne, among others. The exhibition shows a unique and wide view of the Paris suburbs represented by well-known artists from Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot to Maurice de Vlaminck, as well as less renowned painters, like A. Hervier de Romande. Among the 150 works of art, there are the Barbizon school of painters, the Impressionists, the Post-Impressionists and those influenced by Cubism. The exhibition spans over a century, from 1850 to 1950. The representations show the passion for nature of artists thrilled by the idea of painting in the open air, en plein air, as well as the suburban leisure including boating on the Marne River or on the Seine River, at the time of the golden era of guinguettes. The visitors are also able to witness how the Paris suburbs have evolved with an overview of the industrialization in the modern era.

One of the representations of boating is the painting by A. Hervier de Romande, Paul Féval en barque sur la Marne of 1890 (oil on canvas, 128×171 cm, Musée de Nogent-sur-Marne). Paul Féval was the son of writer Paul Féval père, who was born in Rennes in 1816 and is the author of The Hunchback. Paul Féval in Hervier de Romande’s painting is featured with his wife in a setting celebrating the nautical festivals held on 15 August each year after the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. River Marne, “The Boaters” by French Fauvist painter Raoul Dufy and “River Marne” by Marcel Gromaire show a collectively shared practice of leisure activities. Whereas Pierre-Emmanuel Damoye featured a scene displaying the quest for tranquility in La Seine à Nanterre, around 1880 (oil on wood, 30×60 cm, Musée du Domaine départemental de Sceaux).

More information can be found here.

Also take a look at Raoul Dufy’s Bords de Marne, les canotiers (1925), Marcel Gromaire’s Les bords de la Marne (1925) and Georges de Sonneville’s L’appareillage à Saint-Maur (1930-1932).