André SUREDA (Versailles 1872 - 1930)

Young girls from Tlemcen at the fountain Mixed media on cardboard 48 x 66.5 cm Signed and dated lower left A Sureda 1916 A gifted student of William Bouguereau and Gabriel Ferrier at the Beaux-Arts in Paris, André Sureda first exhibited with Les Artistes français in 1894. In 1896, while visiting his sister who was getting married near Algiers, he discovered and experienced the country for the first time. In 1900, he joined the French Orientalists with Femmes Ouled Nails. Then, from 1910, he devoted himself entirely to the Maghreb, returning every year to Algeria, where his mother was originally from. He lived in Tlemcen from 1911 until the end of the war, where he studied the Deià Jewish communities he had already experienced in Morocco with the grace of Berber women. He also painted in the South and in Ghardaïa. Settling in Paris after 1922, he continued to exhibit his North African works, considered the best of Orientalism by leading critics. Retrospectives were held at the Petit Palais in Paris in 1936, and at the Musée Demaeght in Oran in 1948. Works from Algeria: Musée Rolin, Autun. MBA. Bordeaux. Musée de l'Oise, Beauvais. Musée de Pau. Musée Lambinet, Versailles. MNBA, Algiers: La Casbah mys-térieuse, lithograph. Musée Zabana, Oran | 41, 104, 138, 1391. Marion, Vidal-Bué. "André Sureda: Peintre Orientaliste Algérie-Maroc-Tunisie-Syrie-Palestine 1872-1930. Edition de l'Amateur. 2006. p.136.(reproduced) L'Illustration, May 24, 1930, special issue on the Centenary of Algeria. Private collection; (reproduced)