Auguste Chabaud

AUGUSTE CHABAUD (Nimes, France, 1882- Graveson, France, 1955).
"Road through the Alpilles".
Oil on cardboard.
Signature stamp in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 53 x 105 cm.

The work on tender belongs to one of Chabaud's later stages when, once he had lived in Montmartre and met Henri Matisse and André Derain, as well as having experimented with his own "blue period" in which he only used the color Prussian blue, he focused on the agricultural life of the south of France, the daily life of the people and the beautiful hills of the Alpilles in Provence. At this time his expressionist language was based on the realization of landscapes, scenes of life and nature. With his paintings Chabaud captured a monumental Provence, full of life and pictorial intensity defined by the overwhelming sunlight. In this cardboard we see how the landscape, resolved in simple shapes and outlined with thick black strokes, is built from a few symbolic elements, in a reduced chromaticism.

Auguste Chabaud was trained at the School of Fine Arts in Avignon. In 1899 he moved to Paris to continue his artistic training at the Académie Julian and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. There he met Henri Matisse and André Derain. In 1900 he returned to his parents' vineyard in the south of France, as the business was hit by a crisis there. In 1901 he was forced to leave Paris again to secure his livelihood. He worked on a ship and got to know the West African coast. In the following years he became familiar with Parisian nightlife. In the Parisian district of Montmartre, where he had his studio, he painted various scenes of Parisian life. Chabaud's cubist phase began in 1911, where he also began to sculpt. In the following years he held numerous exhibitions, including the 1913 exhibition in New York, where his works were exhibited alongside those of artists such as Matisse, Derain, Vlaminck and Picasso. On his return from World War I, Chabaud settled in Graveson. From 1920 he lived his "blue period". He used Prussian blue as the only color in his works. From then on, he focused exclusively on the south of France. He painted scenes of rural life, peasants and the hills and paths of the Alpilles. He died in 1955 in Graveson. In 1992, the Regional Council of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur inaugurated the Auguste Chabaud Museum in his honor.