BARBIER André (1883-1970), seaside in foggy weather,... Lot 12

BARBIER André (1883-1970), seaside in foggy weather, oil on canvas, signed lower left, (22),46X66 BARBIER André (1883-1970) André Georges Alfred Barbier was born in Arras on 24 January 1883, rue du Marché-au-filet, in the Cathedral district, into a family of notables (his father was director of the Mont de Piété). He won a first prize for piano at the age of eight, and developed a passion for astronomy and later for photography, two passions that he pursued with easel painting. In 1903, he moved to Paris and exhibited four paintings at the Salon des Indépendants. The year 1906 marked the beginning of his friendship with the painter Claude Monet, then aged 66, a meeting which was organised by the art critic Gustave Geffroy. He wrote: "Gifted as you are, with this rare perception that you have of plans and distances, of this air vapour so light that you know how to capture on your canvases, it is not possible that you do not appear as one of the true artists of your generation...". A sincere friendship will then be established between the two painters, described through correspondence and numerous visits to the studio in Giverny. An anecdote reminds us that it was André Barbier, an astronomy enthusiast, who suggested to Claude Monet that he adopt Zeiss glasses to correct the vision problems he was encountering at the end of his life. André Barbier exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants from 1903 to 1914 and again in 1967, 1969 and 1970. From 1924 to 1930 at the Salon des Tuileries, in 1926 he participated in the retrospective of the Société des Indépendants, and in 1937 at the International Exhibition. In Paris, his studio on the Quai aux fleurs on the Ile Saint-Louis is a window open on subjects that stimulate his inspiration: Notre-Dame, the Institute, the Eiffel Tower, the Place de la Concorde, which are the subjects of his most beautiful paintings (The floods of 1910, the fog of the Seine that envelops the barges, bridges or Notre-Dame). )