Yves Brayer 1907-1990

32 avenue Marceau 75008 | +33 (0)1 42 61 42 10 | +33 (0)6 07 88 75 84 | [email protected] | galeriearyjan.com Yves Brayer 1907-1990

Biography

Yves Brayer was a landscape painter who began his apprenticeship at the Academy of and the Grande Chaumière, before joining the Paris Fine Art School. He showed very young a strong personality and has been encouraged by Jean-Louis Forain to exhibit his works. As he was still student, he first exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants.

In 1927, the state gave him a grant that allowed him to travel to where the meeting with the Prado's Masters will impact his entire future works.

After a stay in through a prize created by Marshall Lyautey, he gained the Great Prize of Rome in 1930. Spain first missed him, but the richness of the Italian life in the thirties finally charmed him. As soon as he came back in Paris, he exhibited at the Galerie Charpentier on Faubourg Saint Honoré, where the public discovered the authenticity and the virtuosity of this painter with strong and eccentric temperament.

The year 1945 marked a new step in his work. Yves Brayer leaved Paris to a stay in Provence. There he realised that there were other harmonies beside architecture created by humans, there was the pure and wild nature. Soon he's get fascinated by the diversity of the Alpilles in South of France. From this time, he used to spend many months in Provence each year.

After his dark Spanish phase, his ochre and red Italian one, he finally diversified his palette by introducing green, light yellows and a few tones of blue. Strongly attracted by Mediterranean landscapes, he returned to work in Spain and , but the Provence and the Camargue will always stay his favorite places for his entire life.

He travelled to Mexico, , , , Russia, United States and too. Taking quickly possession of the light and the rituals of these countries, he has taken back from there many drawings and watercolors.

Yves Brayer also realised mural decorations, tapestries models, set pieces and costumes for the French Theater.

He has been elected as a member of the Fine Art Academy in 1957, in Charles Fouqueray's chair.

Brayer has been a teacher at the Grande Chaumière Academy during fifty years, and President of the Automn Salon from 1981 to 1986. In 1977, he became the curator of Marmottan Museum in Paris, and during his eleven years at the head of this place, he organised many prestigious exhibitions.

In 1997, the National Library exhibited " Yves Brayer, Graveur " for his ninetieth birthday, and the Postal Museum gave an exhibition of his works. On the year after his death, in 1991, the Yves Brayer Museum opened in the Baux de Provence.

Museums Musée Yves Brayer de Baux en Provence Musée d'Orsay Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris Musée Frabre de Montpellier

32 avenue Marceau 75008 Paris | +33 (0)1 42 61 42 10 | +33 (0)6 07 88 75 84 | [email protected] | galeriearyjan.com Yves Brayer 1907-1990

Musée Réattu d'Arles Musée Estrine de Saint-Rémi-de-Provence

Bibliography Jean Bouret, " Eloge d'Yves Brayer ", éditions Manuel Bruker, 1955 André Chamson, " Yves Brayer ", édition Pierre Cailler, 1958 Pierre Mac Orlan, " Yves Brayer et ses cortèges ", édition Romanet, 1961 Marcel Zahar, " Yves Brayer ", Vision sur les Arts, 1974

32 avenue Marceau 75008 Paris | +33 (0)1 42 61 42 10 | +33 (0)6 07 88 75 84 | [email protected] | galeriearyjan.com