78 / 139
| 8
Impressionist & Modern Art
3212* GUSTAVE LOISEAU(1865 Paris 1935)
The river Eure in winter. 1926.
Oil on canvas.
Signed lower left: GLoiseau.
65 x 81 cm.
This work will be included in the catalogue
raisonné being prepared by Didier Imbert,
Paris.
Provenance:
- Galerie Durand-Ruel, New York (with the
label on the reverse).
- Private collection, Switzerland.
Exhibitions:
- Geneva 1974, Retrospective Gustave
Loiseau, Galerie des Granges, 17 Okto-
ber - 31 December 1974, no. 28.
- Stuttgart 1992, Gustave Loiseau, Kunst-
haus Bühler, 15 June - 15 August 1992, p.
40 (with ill.)
- Stuttgart 2008, Weihnachstsausstellung,
Kunsthaus Bühler, 8. November - 22
December 2008, p. 41 (with ill.; with label
on the reverse).
Literature: Melas Kyriazi, Jean: Gustave
Loiseau, l'historiographie de la Seine,
Athen 1971, S. 77 (with ill.).
After completing his studies at the École
des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, Gustave Loi-
seau went to Pont-Aven in Brittany where
he met Paul Gaugin, Henri Moret, and
Maxime Maufra.
Although he quickly befriended Gaugin, he
was barely influenced by his style. Loiseau
remained faithful to Impressionism and
developed his own particular, subtle varia-
tion. Naturally shy and rather introverted,
he continued to work in his own style even
alongside such an influential group as that
in Pont-Aven, painting his favourite motifs
with his preference for fog, snow, rain, and
atmospheric hazy landscapes. Only influ-
enced by Seurat and Signac, he eventually
emancipated himself from their influence
and adopted his own pointillist technique
that was again closer to the beginnings of
Impressionism.
As early as 1895 he exhibited at the Salon
des Indépendants and his paintings were
highly praised by visitors and critics, inclu-
ding the art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel, who
was impressed by his work and took him
under contract.
Loiseau's works display a luminous colour
palette, impasto brushwork and a selec-
tion of motifs corresponding more to
the Impressionists. Like Sisley, he would
search for a beautiful location along the
banks of a river which could offer various
impressive moods to be captured at
different times of the day and in different
weather conditions.
His painting style is not composed of
strict, uniform dots of colour, as with
Signac, but rather of diverse, dynamic
brushstrokes capturing the movements
of the water surface or the branches and
leaves of the trees in the wind. In these
brushstrokes, called "touche croisée" or
"en treillis", his technique is more reminis-
cent of Monet's late work.
The work offered here, depicting a beau-
tiful wintry landscape on the banks of the
Eure, presents an impressive example of
Loiseau's painting.
CHF 80 000 / 120 000
(€ 71 430 / 107 140)