Valtat orchestre
Louis VALTAT (1869-1952)
"The orchestra at the fun fair" Oil on canvas, 71 x 56 cm Signed lower right "Valtat"
About the artist
Louis Valtat born Louis André Valtat in Dieppe on August 8, 1869 and died in Paris on January 2, 1952 is a French painter and engraver. Louis Valtat was born in the paternal house, at 41, rue d'Écosse in Dieppe, son of François Victor Valtat, shipowner and amateur painter and his wife, Marguerite Valtat, née Barluet, originally from Bernay (Eure), where the family will settle in 1874, rue des Champs-de-la-Couture. In 1880, Louis Valtat's parents moved to rue Montebello in Versailles. He studied at the Lycée Hoche in Versailles. His father participated in 1884 in the first Salon des Indépendants where he exhibited a landscape. In 1886, Louis Valtat entered the School of Fine Arts in Paris in the workshops of Jules Lefebvre (1834-1911). From 1886 to 1888, he completed his training at the Académie Julian under the direction of Gustave Boulanger (1824-1888), then his successor Benjamin-Constant (1845-1902), and befriended Albert André and Pierre Bonnard. He met Édouard Vuillard and the Nabis group who also had an influence on his work, initially oriented towards pointillism. He started at the Salon des Indépendants in 1889. Winner of the Jauvin d'Attainville Prize in 1890, he set up his first workshop on rue de la Glacière in Paris, and the paintings he sent to the Salon des Independents in 1893, such as On the Boulevard, were for motive the animation of the surrounding streets. Suffering from tuberculosis, he left for health stays in Banyuls, Collioure where George-Daniel de Monfreid introduced him to Aristide Maillol. He made several excursions to Spain, to Llançà or to Figueras with George-Daniel de Monfreid.