LUCIEN SIMON

(French, 1861-1945)

Fête Foraine

Oil on Canvas

32 x 39¼ Inches

Signed Lower Left, 'L. Simon'

Partially titled, verso, on old label.

 

Provenance: Austin Hills estate, San Francisco.

Previously with: Doic, Wilson & Wheatley, Edinburgh; Alex Reid, Glasgow.

Displayed in a custom-made, 24kt gold leaf, carved wood frame by Richard Tobey & Son.

Framed dimensions: 38 H x 3.5 D x 46 W inches

 

A substantial, Post-Impressionist figural landscape showing a staged preview of a circus and funfair held beside the Norman church of Eglise Notre Dame de la Joie in Penmarch, Brittany, circa 1919.

 

Lucien Simon studied with Bouguereau and Robert-Fleury and exhibited regularly at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and Salon des Artistes Français, as well as at London's Royal Academy. Over the course of a long and successful career, he was the recipient of numerous awards and medals including the Grand Prix at the Paris International Exposition of 1899. In 1900, he was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for his services to art.

 

During his visits to Penmarch, the artist addressed this subject several times including with 'Village Fair in Brittany' (circa 1919) and 'Parade de Foire' (1919), which are held in the permanent collections of the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (Matsukata Collection) and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper, respectively.

 

The unconventional, itinerant life of circus performers – and the sense of escape from routine they represented – is grandly captured in this colorful fairground scene painted on the coast of Brittany. Lucien Simon discovered the setting, with its distinctive light and picturesque inhabitants, after his marriage in 1891 to the Parisian portrait painter Jeanne Dauchez, whose parents bought a summer retreat at the village of Bénodet. Lucien and Jeanne visited them often and, in 1901, bought an abandoned sémaphore (navy signal house) in nearby Sainte-Marine which became a much-used second home and painting studio for many years. Simon became famous for his sympathetic representations of the Breton people, painting village dances, church processions, laborers and harvest scenes.

 

Reference:

E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs, et Graveurs, Jacques Busse, 1999 Nouvelle Édition, Gründ 1911, Vol. 12, page 824; Thieme-Becker Allgemeines Lexikon der Bildenden Künstler von der Antike bis zu Gegenwart, Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag 1992, Vol. 31/32, page 57-58; Mallett’s Index of Artists, Daniel Trowbridge Mallett, Peter Smith: New York 1948 Edition, R.R. Bowker Company 1935, page 405; Dictionnaire Biographique des Artistes Contemporains, 1910-1934, Edouard-Joseph, Paris Art & Edition 1930-1934, Vol. 3, page 302-303; et al.