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Gustave Loiseau (French, 1865-1935), "Le Port de Dieppe", 1926, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, multiple gallery labels en verso include: "McColl Fine Art, Charlotte, North Carolina", "Richard Green, London, UK", "The J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California" and partially visible handwritten "Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris, France", 23-3/4" x 28-7/8". Presented in an antique giltwood and gesso frame. Provenance: Galerie Durand-Ruel, Paris; J. Paul Getty Museum, Malibu, California; Richard Green Galleries, London, United Kingdom; Private collection, France; McColl Fine Art, Charlotte, North Carolina; Chappell & McCullar, Fresno, California; Private collection, Houston, Texas. The post-impressionist landscapist Gustave Loiseau is widely acknowledged for his unusual and distinctive application of short brushstrokes of paint in complex layers - a technique alternately referred to as "touches croisees" or "croisee en treillis". This approach, combined with a bold juxtaposition of light and dark colors, results in a complex, textural surface which creates a sense of depth by enhancing the play of light, hue and shadow. Born into a Parisian trade family, Loiseau was initially apprenticed to a decorator. In 1888, an unexpected inheritance financially enabled him to enroll in l'Ecole des Arts Decoratifs and he moved to a house in Montmartre, which, interestingly, would later be the residence of Pablo Picasso (1881-1973). Loiseau was soon disenchanted with the strict Academic approach to painting espoused by the school, and he left after only one year of study to enter the atelier of the artist Fernand Just Quignon (1854-1941). Quignon encouraged the young man to travel to Port-Aven where Loiseau became acquainted with the artists of the Pont-Aven School: Maxime Maufra (1861-1918), Henry Moret (1856-1913), Emile Bernard (1868-1941), Emile Dezaunay (1854-1938) and, most significantly, Paul Gauguin (1848-1903) after his return from Tahiti in 1894. With the encouragement of his new friends, Loiseau began to take part in the "Expositions des Peintures Neo Impressionistes et Symbolistes" at the Galerie le Barc de Boutteville and the Salon des Independants, In 1894, in one of the most significant decisions of his career, he entered into a contract with Paul Durand-Ruel, a supporter and advocate of the various post-impressionist artists and an influential gallery owner in Paris and New York. This association with Durand-Ruel allowed Loiseau to embark on plein air painting excursions to the French countryside and the resulting works were exhibited at Durand-Ruel's galleries, first in New York and then in Paris. Loiseau's earlier works reveal the influence of the Pont-Aven artists, especially the stylistic aspects of pointillism (with its abrupt and effective dabs of pigment) and Cloisonnism (with its emphasis on blocks of color). It was not until ca. 1910 that he adopted his characteristic cross-hatching technique. The artist continued to travel for the rest of his life, spending the summers in Normandy, Brittany and the Dordogne, and returning to his studio in Pontoise during the winter months. He would frequently return two, three or more times to the same location, painting it at different times of the day and under various weather conditions, though he rarely chose to paint at midday, feeling the direct sunlight was too intense and did not allow for the examination of light and shadow that he favored. Loiseau preferred a muted palette of cool blues, mauves and creams - with accents of terracotta and bright blue - and his distinct brushstroke is evident in the painting offered here in one of several views of Dieppe he is known to have painted. Literature: Burton, B. Fredericksen. Catalogue of the Paintings in the J. Paul Getty Museum, 1972, p. 107, illus. #156. References: Brettell, Richard R. et al. Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Paintings in the Robert Lehman Collection. Princeton: Princeton University Press in Association with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.


  • Condition: In overall excellent condition. No visible signs of losses or professional restoration detected under UV light.

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