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Presentations
André Lhote (1885 – 1962)
Andre Lhote was born on July 5, 1885 in
Bordeaux. As a youth, he was an apprentice to a
decorative sculptor and studied sculpture at the
Eçole des Beaux-Arts. He acquired his sense of
grandeur and the monumentality which characterizes
his figures from the Gothic and Baroque. He avidly
read Delacroix’s Journal and Baudelaire’s
Curiosities Esthetiques. He observed the
Impressionists, admired Gauguin, and copied
Delacroix and Rubens in the museum. His capacity for
diligent work was matched by his intelligence and
his ever growing intellectuality.
In
1906, Lhote sent a painting, La Grappe,
based on Gothic constructions, to the Salon
d’Automne but it was refused. However, for the next
four years, at the suggestion of his friend Roualt,
he developed the dramatic aspect of his work, and in
1910, the paintings he sent to the Salon d’Automne
and Independants were so well received, that the
Valerie Druet gave him his first one man show in
Paris. Maurice Denis promptly bought one but not
without caviling – he deplored Lhote’s “dangerous”
tendency towards Cubism.
At this time,
Lhote wrote, “I took part in the first Cubist show,
rue Tronchet, and in the first Section d’Or,
declining, however, to join any group, a grave
blunder, which has deprived me of the honor of being
represented in Apollinaire’s book on Cubism, though
he has spoken very warmly of my first pictures. The
Gothic Sculptors had given me a love for simple
planes and geometricised drawing and prepared me
quite naturally for the influence of Braque and
Picasso. I can claim no originality therefore,
except in one point: I have never painted a guitar
or a tobacco package – a detail more important than
it seems. I have always been interested in landscape
and the human figure, even the nude, in defiance of
both Cubist and Futurist excommunication.” This
statement encompasses Lhote’s independence of
thought and practice and demonstrates his lifelong
stand, midway between Realism and Cubism. In this
respect, he is the Cubist-intellectual painter
par excellence. In his paintings, one feels the
presence of the subtle, logical analyst, who
step-by-step, achieves his objectives with the
clearest precision in composition and color.
In 1918, Lhote lectured in many Academies and
addressed conferences on art in Europe, Egypt and
Rio de Janeiro. His eloquence and his writing,
apparent in numerous books and La Revue Francaise,
equaled his artistry. Students came from every
continent to his art school in the rue d’Odessa in
Paris, attracted by the aura of the great
master-teacher of his time.
Andre Lhote
enjoys a world-wide representation in private
collections and important museums. Since 1958, there
have been notable retrospective exhibitions at the
Musee National d’Art Morderne in Paris, the Musee
Municipal in Metz, the Musee Toulouse-Lautrec in
Albi, in Limoges and Lyon.
Bio Excerpt
translated from the French text : E. Benezit.
Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculptreurs, Dessinatuers
et Graveurs; Paris : Grund, 1999.pp.629-630
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