ANDRÉ-LÉON VIVREL (1886-1976) Reunion of ten works Countryside and seaside landscapes including Brittany Watercolour on paper Signed lower right or left A set of ten works, watercolor on paper, signed lower right or left From 22,5 x 29 cm to 27 x 34 cm. From 9 7/8 x 11 3/8 in. to 10 5/8 x 13 3/8 in. Provenance Private collection, France André-Léon Vivrel was born in Paris in 1886. At just 15, he decided to become a painter. He was supported in this by his mother, whom he described as his first teacher, and his father, a wine merchant who won first prize for drawing in 1870. A student at the prestigious Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Vivrel entered the Académie Julian in 1910. There he studied under Paul Albert Laurens, the eldest son of Jean-Paul Laurens, and then attended the workshops of Marcel Baschet and Henri Royer at the École des Beaux-Arts. He rented a studio in Montmartre, at 65 rue Caulaincourt, just eight numbers from that of Auguste Renoir, the painter he admired most of all. He first exhibited at the Salon des artistes français in 1913. Mobilised in 1914, he was awarded the Croix de Guerre for "heroic conduct" in 1917. After the war, he returned to his studio in Montmartre. He was awarded an honourable mention at the 1920 Salon and the State bought two still lifes (not located) from him, which he exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants. He also exhibited two portraits of Breton women, painted on his return from a stay in Ploumanac'h (Côtes d'Armor). The Galerie Lorenceau (Paris) gave him a solo exhibition in 1920. In 1922, Vivrel appeared for the first time at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. After being awarded the Deldebat de Gonzalva prize in 1932, the following year he won a silver medal at the Salon des artistes français with "Le Temps des cerises". In 1934, Vivrel presented Les baigneuses, the first of a series of large nudes exhibited at the Salon until 1943. The culmination of his research into the female nude, his 1939 "Baigneuses" won a gold medal at the Salon des artistes français. This final award crowned a silver medal won by Vivrel in 1937 at the Exposition Internationale des Arts et Techniques in Paris. Critics were unanimous in their praise of his talent, and in 1940 Louis Paillard wrote on the front page of the "Petit journal" of 6 May 1940: "André Vivrel, appears, I proclaim, as one of the best in this Salon [of French artists]". The exhibition "Vivrel - recent paintings", organised by the Galerie de Berri in May 1942, featured 31 paintings illustrating the diversity of genres that Vivrel tackled, but it was landscapes that he explored most passionately. His chosen land was the Loiret, where his elder brother Marcel had a second home at Châtillon-sur-Loire, not far from Champtoceaux. In the aftermath of the Great War, destitute of money, he took refuge there to paint on the motif at lower cost. In the spring of 1926, Vivrel was back in Brittany, from where he brought back "Port de Camaret", exhibited at the Salon des Tuileries in 1926. A few years later, in 1934, he returned to Côtes d'Armor, where he composed seascapes that were also studies of the sky. Vivrel spent the summer of 1926 in Corsica. There he produced watercolours which were exhibited in the autumn at the Galerie Georges Petit and then in New York. On each occasion, the critics were unanimous in praising their qualities: "André Vivrel's exhibition is the work of an artist who is sensitive, fine, yet broad in his conceptions. His views of Corsica, Brittany and Paris are like his delicately harmonious flowers" ("La Semaine à Paris", 12 November 1926, p. 63). In 1928, he returned to the Midi. Capturing the warm, vibrant light of Provence, he painted "Le port de Saint-Tropez", exhibited the same year at the Salon des Indépendants. The Mediterranean theme also made its mark at the Salon des Tuileries, where Vivrel presented views of harbours and liners, evidence of a flourishing tourist industry. In 1947, he was awarded the Prix de l'Académie des Beaux-Arts. When Vivrel wasn't on the roads of France, he took Paris as his model. He painted the narrow streets of Montmartre and the capital's monuments, such as Notre-Dame Cathedral, which he painted in series like Monet. He liked to linger on the quays of the Seine, which offered him many unusual views of the city and inspired paintings reminiscent of Albert Lebourg's Parisian landscapes. Painting until his last breath, André-Léon Vivrel died in Bonneville-sur-Touques on 7 June 1976. Vivrel is represented in the collections of the Musée Eugène-Boudin in Honfleur and the Musée Mandet in Riom. His painting, "Les Meules", decorates the offices of the former Secretary of State for Veterans and Victims of War (Paris).