Pierre Jean Charles Deval

PIERRE JEAN CHARLES DEVAL (Lyon, 1897 - 1993).
"Female nude".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 54 x 81 cm.

In this work Pierre Deval immortalizes a female nude captured from life through a synthetic language, with energetic and well controlled strokes, which seeks above all to capture the volume and geometric play, while maintaining descriptive details that avoid the loss of realism. The woman, with a relaxed posture and smiling face, looks directly at the viewer, a gesture with which she manages to create a direct relationship with the one who observes the work. The pink of her cheeks mimics the orange-red of the sofa. The painting is clear and luminous, as if a ray of sunlight illuminates the scene.

Self-taught and outside the Parisian commercial circuits, Piere Jean Charles Deval spent a month in Fernand Cormon's studio and participated in the Dadaist movement alongside Breton, Tzara and Aragon, among others. At the age of 24, he attracted the attention of Léonce Bénédite at the 1921 Salon, where the State acquired one of his works. He received the Abd-el-Tif prize in 1922 and exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 1924. Subsequently, he lived in Paris, traveled extensively with Marquet and frequented some of the most illustrious "fauvists" and other great names of the time, such as Charles Camoin, Henri Charles Manguin and Henri Matisse. In 1925 he acquired an 18th century manor house in La Valette du Var. He finally settled permanently in the south of France, at the Château d'Orvès, and became "a Provençal painter". Deval exhibited at the Salon d'Automne from 1920 onwards, at the Salon des Tuileries and at the Salon des Indépendants, as well as at the French Independent Art, at the Salon d'Automne de Lyon and at the Salon du Sud-Est (Lyon). He was the subject of a major exhibition on the occasion of his centenary, followed by two major retrospectives: one in 1998 at the Museum of Toulon and the other in 1999 at the Maison Ravier in Morestel. His works are exhibited in numerous museums. His work is currently on display at the British Museum in London, the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon, the Museum of Art in Toulon, the National Museum of Fine Arts in Algiers, the Zabana National Museum in Oran and the National Museum in Tokyo.