Maufra L'isle Adam
Maxime MAUFRA (1861-1918)
"Le coin du pont, Isle Adam" Painting, Oil on canvas, 81 x 57 cm Signed lower right "Maufra, 1906"
About the artist
Maxime Maufra, born Maximilien Émile Louis Maufra on May 17, 1861 in Nantes (Loire-Atlantique), and died on May 23, 1918 in Poncé-sur-le-Loir (Sarthe), is a French painter, engraver and lithographer. Maxime Maufra was introduced to painting with Charles Leduc and his brother Alfred Leduc in Nantes, by reproducing landscapes on the banks of the Loire, but his father, who decided to make him a businessman, made him take a language study trip. in England in Liverpool. There, he discovers what painting really is, especially Turner's. He visited Wales and Scotland, whose landscapes will be a source of inspiration. He returned to France in 1884, he carried out his professional activity and his pictorial work simultaneously. He was then initiated into Impressionism by Charles Le Roux. In 1886, he was noticed by Octave Mirbeau, during an exhibition at the Paris Salon. That same year he participated in the Nantes Fine Arts Exhibition which is held every three years and to which are invited painters already consecrated and having participated in the Paris Salon, including Eugène Boudin, Léon Bonnat, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Jules-Élie Delaunay, Émile Dezaunay, with whom he was to forge a great friendship, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Armand Guillaumin, Henri Harpignies, Henry Moret, Camille Pissaro, Auguste Renoir, Georges Seurat or Alfred Sisley. It was not until 1890 that he decided to devote himself fully to painting and moved to Pont-Aven after having met Paul Gauguin in 1890. In 1891 and 1892, he frequented Marie Henry's inn in Pouldu with Charles Filiger. In 1892, Maufra attended with his friend Émile Dezaunay, the studio of Eugène Delâtre where they made their first engravings, influenced by Paul Gauguin. He was the first to settle at Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre in 1893, and his workshop was frequented by his friends Delaunay, Aristide Briand, as well as the poet Victor-Émile Michelet. He ended up deepening his own path by approaching landscapes with a predilection for the navies of Brittany. From 1895, he came into contact with Paul Durand-Ruel, who was to be his dealer, after Le Barc de Boutteville, until the artist's death in 1918, and organized numerous exhibitions of his works. After a trip to Scotland in the summer of 1895, he married Céline Le Floc'h in London, whom he had met in Pont-Aven. He then stayed in Quiberon, at the Pointe du Raz, on the Crozon peninsula and in many other places. He settled in 1903 in a small farm in Kerhostin, which he acquired in 1910. He tried unsuccessfully to reconstitute a small group in these places. Only Léon Duval-Gozlan (1853-1941), tired of Parisian life, will join him. He was appointed painter of the Navy in 1916. Regionalist activist, Maxime Maufra is one of the leaders of the “fine arts” section of the Breton Regionalist Union. He died of a heart attack on May 23, 1918 at Pont à Poncé, where he had set up his easel.