Achille-Emile Othon FRIESZ known as Othon-Friesz (1879 - 1949)

“The artist’s studio, rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs, 1943”

Oil on canvas
Signed lower right “Othon Friesz” and dated “1943”

Origin :
Private collection, Paris
Gallery of the Presidency, Faubourg Saint-Honoré Paris 8
Private collection

Othon Friesz was born in 1879 in Le Havre. Very early on, his parents encouraged him to become a painter, so he began his artistic training at the School of Fine Arts in his city in the studio of Charles-Marie Lhuillier in 1892. He then worked in the Raoul Dufy workshop and befriend Georges Braque. In 1897, he obtained a scholarship which allowed him to study for six years in the studio of Léon Bonnat in Paris. In Paris he rubbed shoulders with many artists such as: Charles Camoin, Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse, Henri Charles Manguin and in particular Camille Pissarro, who will influence him in his creative phase. Othon Friesz started in 1909 at the Salon de la Société des Artistes français, then in 1904 at the Salon d'Automne as well as at the Salon des Indépendants in 1906.
It was at this moment that the artist began to turn towards Fauvism.
Othon Friesz undertook numerous trips across Europe: Portugal, Germany, Belgium, and the United States. His travels are associated with participation in artistic events in each country, which gives him greater artistic notoriety.

After the Fauvism period, the artist adopted a singular and powerful style, imbued with a broad and always moving gesture of execution.

From 1914 and until his death in 1949, the artist occupied a studio in the sixth arrondissement of Paris, located at 73 rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs.

Our painting represents the artist's studio on rue Notre-Dames-des-Champs, in 1943. This rare testimony of the interior of the artist's studio is carefully studied in its composition, bringing the work to life.

The brushstroke is broad, the colors are bright, the shapes are dynamic, borrowing from his first Fauvism period and the painter Paul Cézanne.
His work is unique to the artist such as the use of a tight composition.

Dimensions: 65.5 x 81 cm without frame and 88 x 104 cm with its carved and gilded wooden frame.