Maurice Estève

Maurice Estève is one of the major painters of the news Ecole of Paris, born May 2nd 1904 with Culan (Cher), dead June 29th 2001 with Culan. Colourist, humanistic artist, figure of the Modern art excel, his style was often characterized by an interlacing of forms whose natural qualities, even organic testify to a great poetry.

Biography

Maurice Estève is born on May 2nd 1904 with Culan where it passes his childhood near his large parents. He joined them in 1913 in Paris, where he discovers the museum of Louvre, particularly impressed by the Bataille of San Romano of Paolo Ucello, but also Courbet, Delacroix and Jean-Baptiste Chardin. Returned in Culan for the summer it remains there during the years of war, starts to paint since 1915. He lives again in Paris as from 1918. Apprentice in a typographer then in a workshop of modern drawing of furniture, it follows courses of the evening of drawing, discovers in 1919 the painting of Cézanne then, meeting the anxious opposition of his father to his vocation, directs in 1923 to Barcelona, during one year, a workshop of drawing of shawls and fabrics.

Of return to Paris he attends with Montparnasse the free workshop of the Colarossi Academy. Marked up to that point by the painting of Primitive and the work of Cézanne, it undergoes momentarily in 1927 the influence of the Surréalisme, in particular of Giorgio de Chirico. It presents its first particular exposure into 1930 before being interested in the cinema and the setting in scene. Upset by the events of the civil war in Spain, it crosses in 1936 a short period expressionnist. On the council of Braque which takes part in it, it is asked to him into 1936 to expose to Stockholm with Matisse, Picasso, Juan Gris and Fernand Leger. It takes part the following year in the realization of mural decorations of Robert and Sonia Delaunay for the houses of the Aviation and the Railroads to the World Fair of Paris. Mobilized until August 1940, it exposes several times in 1942 and 1943 to the sides of Jean Bazaine, Leon Gischia, Jean Moal, Alfred Manessier, Edouard Pignon and Gustave Singier.

Estève accepts a franchise agreement, of 1942 to 1949, with the Galerie Louis Carré which carries out in 1945 an important exposure “Bazaine, Estève, Charles Lapicque”, respectively prefaced by André Frénaud, Jean Lescure and Jean Tardieu. It then starts to expose regularly abroad, in particular in Scandinavia. In 1947 the series of its fabrics around the “Trades” makes it pass from a formal stylization to a nonfigurative painting freed from any realism, strongly structured and intensely coloured, of which it appears in the following decades one of the essential representatives.

In margin of its exposures of paintings to the Gallery Square, with the Gallery Villand and Galanis then with the Gallery Claude Bernard, Estève which works regularly during the summer with Culan, carries out lithographies, regularly practices the watercolour but also the charcoal, the monotype, joining. It also designs the stained glasses of the church of Berlincourt, in the Swiss Jura (1957) and of the paperboards of tapestries. It receives in 1970 the National Grand Prix of Arts. From 1981 several retrospectives of its work are organized.

The Town of Bourges decides to present the whole of works (more than one hundred) whose painter makes him donation in 1985 in the Hotel of the Aldermen, restored with the assistance of the Historic buildings and the Management of the Museums of France to become the “Estève Museum”, inaugurated in 1987. Two other donations supplement its collections, in 1989 and, for the 10th birthday of the Museum, in 1997. A stamp reproducing its fabric “Skibet” (1979) is emitted in 1986 by the French Post offices.

Estève settles definitively in Culan in 1995. It dies there on June 27th, 2001. Estève belongs to the painters brought together for the exposure " Lyrical flight, Paris 1945-1956" presented to the Museum of Luxembourg (Senate), April-August 2006 ( Burning in Berry , 1949; Interior of July, 1950, of the National museum of modern art; Orly , 1952): ISBN 8876246797.

Quotation

" I never make use of draft, I paint directly on the fabric, without preliminary drawing. The color is organized at the same time as the forms. All is sought in the format in building site… Each work is a succession of metamorphoses… In truth a fabric is for me a sum of ceaseless recoveries which lasts until I am before an organization that I feel living (...) It does not have at home a preliminary image there; no the form which I wish a priori on a fabric. At the time when I paint, it takes place an exchange, a conversation is established between me and the table as this one organize."

Estève, in Estève , Zodiac, April 1979

Selective bibliography

Pierre Francastel, Estève , Paris, Editions Galanis, Paris, 1956
Frank Elgar, Estève, Drawings , Galanis Editions, Paris, 1960
Joseph-Emile Muller, Estève , Paris, Fernand Hazan, 1961
Joseph-Emile Muller, Estève , Paris, Fernand Hazan, 1974
Homage to Estève (special issue of the review XXe century ), Paris, Edition international Company of art of the XXe century, 1975
Estève , (national Galleries of the Large palace, Paris, 1986-1987), Paris, Editions meeting of the national museums, 1986
Monique Prudhomme-Estève, Collection of the Museum Estève , Bourges, Editions of the museums of the town of Bourges, 1990
Lydia Harambourg, Maurice Estève , in the School of Paris 1945-1965, Dictionary of the painters , Neuchâtel, Ides and Calendes, 1993.
Monique Prudhomme-Estève and Robert Maillard, Catalog reasoned of work paints of Maurice Estève , Neuchâtel, Ides and Calendes, 1995,498 p.
Robert Maillard, Maurice Estève , Neuchâtel, Ides and Calendes, 1995,96 p.

Internal bond

nonfigurative Painting

External bonds

Maurice Estève in the National museums (Joconde bases): 129 images
Collection of the National museum of modern art Centers Georges Pompidou (to seek: Estève)
Photographs of the site of the Meeting of the National museums (14 images)
Peinture of Estève to the Museum of Luxembourg: " Chamatoi" (1963)
Bank of images of the ADAGP (17 images)
Site of the galerist Claude Bernard
(" Skibet" , 1979)

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