Fernand Dubuis

FERNAND DUBUIS (Sion, Switzerland, 1908–1991).
"Still Life with Melon," 1947.
Oil on canvas.
Signed, titled, and dated on the reverse.
Measurements: 34 x 52 cm, 37 x 55.5 cm (frame).

Fernand Dubuis was born in Sion in 1908. After a few months at the Lausanne School of Drawing, he moved to Paris in late 1930 and attended various painting academies (Colarossi, Ranson, Grande Chaumière) until 1933. In 1934, he was working in Maurice Denis’s studio. He combined his training in Paris with study trips to Rome, Florence, and Venice. From 1940 to 1945, he lived in Geneva. At the end of the war, he returned to Paris. Beginning in 1952, he lived six months a year in Gordes (Vaucluse), which he left only to settle at the Château de Tertre in Normandy, owned by Roger Martin du Gard. Initially drawn to Cubism and the theories of Severini, whom he had met, he evolved toward a style of painting in which the values of color alone—without reference to nature—should breathe life into the painting.