Art revolution in the Jane Mann & Brian Cotton Jojo Pous with the Livre d’Or, Dufy page. This work is dedicated to Jojo Pous (1927-2013) who sadly died as the book was going to press. Sketch map of principal locations...... 10

Introduction...... 11

Prologue...... 13 Part I

Chapter 1 – In which the story of the part the Roussillon played in the history of art in the first half of the twentieth century begins to unfold...... 25

Chapter 2 – Under the Influence – in which de Monfreid falls under the influence of Gauguin...... 37

Chapter 3 – Matisse in Paris...... 51

Chapter 4 – 1905...... 63

Chapter 5 – In which we go back a bit in time, return to Paris and meet Picasso, the Steins, some dealers, and a few other collectors and artists...... 79

Chapter 6 – Summer 1906 – Winter 1907/8...... 95

Chapter 7 – Paris of “la Bande à Picasso”...... 109 of contents Table Chapter 8 – bound...... 123

Chapter 9 – 1912, Céret...... 145

Chapter 10 – Mostly Céret, mostly 1913...... 151

Chapter 11 – The First World War...... 161

Chapter 12 – After the war...... 165

Chapter 13 – The Roussillon between the wars...... 173

Chapter 14 – End of an era...... 181 Part II

THE MUSEUMS...... 193

Le Musée Maillol...... 195 Musée des Beaux-Arts Hyacinthe Rigaud, ...... 201 Le Musée d’Art Moderne de Céret ...... 207 Collioure, Musée d’Art Moderne...... 213 Musée Terrus, ...... 219 Abbaye de Fontfroide...... 223

SCULPTURE TOURS...... 227

Tour 1 – Perpignan...... 229 Tour 2 – From Perpignan to Banyuls-sur-Mer...... 233 Tour 3 – The Vallespir, mainly Céret...... 237 Tour 4 – The Têt Valley...... 243 Tour 5 – and ...... 247

Brief notes on people & locations...... 249

Select bibliography...... 273

Acknowledgements...... 277

Permissions...... 279

Author biographies...... 281 Sketch map of principal locations

vers Béziers

NARBONNE

Abbaye de Fontfroide

LE LANGUEDOC La Franqui

Tautavel Estagel

Claira LE ROUSSILLON PERPIGNAN

Alénya Villefranche- de-Conflent Elne Prades Corneilla- Vernet- de-Conflent Collioure les-Bains Amélie-les-Bains Port-Vendres Bourg- Pic de Canigou Céret Banyuls- Madame ESPAGNE sur-Mer

St-Laurent ESPAGNE vers Barcelone de Cerdans Introduction

The Roussillon, at the start of the twentieth century, was a very remote corner of . Indeed, until the Treaty of the of 1659, it had not been part of France at all but belonged to the Kingdom of Aragon. The language of the region was Catalan, French was seldom spoken or understood, Paris was a very long way away and outsiders from the north were viewed with considerable misgivings. However, for artists wishing to recharge away from the hectic hubbub of the artistic life of the city, its distance from the capital was a distinct plus. Far from the restrictions of Paris academia they could concentrate fully on their art, undistracted by the outside world. Living was inexpensive, the weather was clement, the sun shone and the light was clear and bright.

The Roussillon of 1905 was unsophisti- cated and provincial. Villages like Collioure were smelly and ramshackle, provincial towns like Céret were small minded and introverted. This did not deter the visiting artists. In common with those who were born and brought up there, they needed the inspiration and interaction provided by Paris with its academies and annual exhibitions and, at the same time, they needed to get away. The northern artists came south to escape and the southern artists went north to benefit from the capital. There was a constant to-ing and fro-ing.

It was in this way that Matisse came to Collioure and Picasso to Céret. Here they painted with great fervour and concentra- tion for relatively short periods of time.

Matisse, inspired by the colours and light of the Mediterranean, was outward looking and gave birth to the bright explosion of Fauvism

Jojo Pous in the Templiers Hotel

Introduction 11 Rooftops, Céret whilst Picasso was introspective looking and relatively uninfluenced by the landscape around him as he developed the angular images of Cubism. Matisse’s paintings are full of light and bright colours, flowing lines and simplicity; Picasso’s are sombre complex studies with browns and blacks predominating. Both contributed to the revolution that was taking place in the modern art of the twentieth century.

The ten years or so between 1905 and 1914 were a decade of astounding artistic activity in this remote region and this book tells some of the stories of the artists, both the outsiders and the locals, who made this happen.

This story is a tale of their interlocking lives, loves and approaches to art played out against a background of the Roussillon towns and landscape in which they lived and worked. Of course Paris comes into it as well. How could it not when it was so central to the world of art in France just as it still is today? Mainly, however, the Roussillon is the setting and the drama of the artistic revolution takes place against the Roussillon’s remote and rugged backdrop.

Collioure view from beach

12 Introduction Prologue

This book was conceived one winter’s day, in the upstairs room of the Templiers Hotel in Collioure, watching Jojo Pous turn the pages of the Hotel’s visitors’ book, Le Livre d’Or. Each page prompted a reminiscence, each reminiscence another story to be told. Listening to the stories it was impossible to ignore the artistic riches accumulating in this remote corner of France from the start of the twentieth century…

Sign at Les Templiers, Collioure

The Templiers Hotel and Restaurant grew out of the Café des Sports inherited by René and Pauline Pous between the wars. Their son, Jojo, took over in the seventies and continued his father’s tradition of welcoming artists, writers and entertainers, most of whom signed the Livre d’Or. In the bar of the Templiers Hotel Jojo Pous is to be found most afternoons, playing a never- ending game of cards with the same old men with whom he went to school as a boy. The bar itself, a carved Catalan boat, mermaid madonna at its prow, dominates the room full of paintings, some given, many bought by the Pous family over the years. His family’s Jojo Pous with the Livre d’Or - Volume II connection with Collioure is told in the pictures crammed onto every centimetre of wall space. Dedicated to “René”, to “Pauline and family”, to “Pous, the artist’s friend”, to “Jojo”. The pictures climb the stairs, fill the corridors and the bedrooms. They adorn the walls of the first floor room where we were sitting, where the rugby club meets and private parties are held, the room where Jojo was born.

The story they tell started between the wars when Pauline Frances married René Pous. Collioure, then, was a poor fishing village. The fishermen of anchovies and sardines were also wine growers. There

Prologue 13 Bar of Hotel des Templiers, Collioure

François Bernadi page, the Livre d’Or

14 Prologue was no running water, there were open drains and plenty of cats. But it was becoming a centre for artists. Leaning on the bar of his Café des Sports, René Pous, welcomed them. He had been at school with Matisse’s children, he enjoyed the company of artists.

One day, in 1927, the year his son Jojo was born, he went to the house of an artist named Leopold Survage to help him repair a lamp. René refused to be paid for his help. Survage gave him one of his canvases, a cubist view of the port. René hung it on the wall in the place of a publicity poster. Soon the walls of the Café des Sports began to fill with paintings. Artists came from far and wide to Collioure to paint and they stopped to drink chez René and Pauline. One of them, Augustin Hanicotte, round glasses and beret on his unruly hair, became part of the village scene after meeting Maillol in Banyuls-sur-Mer in 1915. He lived in Collioure for almost forty years and was one of René Pous’s many friends. In 1925, with the collaboration of the local school, he started painting classes. “Les Gosses de Collioure” was the name he gave them. “The Kids of Collioure”. He was a good teacher. He took the children out painting all around Collioure. He came up against the authorities and both he and the school had to fight to continue. They succeeded. He arranged exhibitions of the children’s work not only in Perpignan but also in Paris, Cannes, Marseilles and Carcassonne. Several of those “gosses”, François Bernadi and François Baloffi, to name but two, went on to become well known artists. Hanicotte’s huge painting, almost 3 x 5 metres, of the beach of Collioure, full to overflowing with the daily life of the village and its villagers, is, thanks to Joséphine Matamoros, in the archives of Collioure’s Peské Museum of Modern Art.

Another artist, Balbino Giner, frequented the Templiers bar and was a close friend of the Pous family. Jojo Pous describes him as a “delicious man and talented artist, so full of fun and life…” Many of his portraits of René, Pauline and Jojo Pous hang on the walls of the bar. His son, also an artist, also called Balbino Giner, lived and worked in Collioure.

On the spine of the first volume of the Livre d’Or of the Templiers is written:

CAFE DES SPORTS LA COBA RENÉ POUS ET FILS COLLIOURE

Spine of the Livre d’Or Volume 1

Prologue 15