Louis Legrand

LOUIS LEGRAND (France, 1863 - 1951).
"The musical pause".
Oil on stiff cardboard.
Presents: exhibition label on the back with the number 382: "Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA".
Provenance: Sale of March 30, 1995, Me Claude Boisgirard, Paris - Collection of works by Louis Legrand, Messrs. V.
- This work is reproduced on the cover of the catalog of that auction.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 73 x 76 cm; 93 x 96 cm (frame).
In this work, Louis Legrand represents two young women in a domestic interior, listening to a piano piece. The painter opts for an unconventional framing: the pianist is reduced to a profile with his back turned, barely cut off at the edge of the painting. This choice, far from being an oversight, aims to reinforce the realism and spontaneity of the scene, as if the viewer were entering it by chance.
The atmosphere is sober: a sofa, a chair, a small table and the pianist's stool are enough to suggest a private space. The visual focus is on the female figure in the center, a young woman with reddish hair whose mane, bathed by the side light entering from the left, becomes the true luminous center of the composition. The glow also highlights her pearl necklace, a detail that guides the viewer's gaze. The friend, located on the right, is outlined with a thicker and more vibrant stroke, giving the scene a counterpoint of energy. The composition, sober and bold at the same time, reveals Legrand's mastery. His firm, nervous brushstrokes do not describe as much as they suggest, alternating areas of color with others that are barely sketched.
Louis Legrand, born in Dijon in 1863, was a painter, watercolorist, engraver and illustrator. After training at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in his native city, he moved to Paris in 1884, where he became a disciple of the controversial Félicien Rops, who initiated him in the techniques of engraving. The master quickly recognized his pupil's talent: in an 1888 letter to Monsieur Roques, director of the Courrier Français, Rops described in Legrand "precious and rare qualities, dominated by an extraordinary love of modeling".
From 1900, Legrand took part in the Universal Exhibition, where he received a medal, and in the Salons des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He exhibited his works at Samuel Bing's gallery and in 1904 at the Georges Petit gallery. In 1906 he is named knight of the Legion of Honor, and in 1911 the Durand-Ruel gallery organizes a great retrospective of his career.
His work, diverse and prolific, is today part of private collections and museums, testimony of an artist who knew how to combine compositional audacity, expressive naturalness and a fine sense of the intimate and the everyday.