Jacques Joos (1945-2021) Souvenir du Louvre 2014 Mixed media on canvas Signed, titled and dated on the back 100 x 81 cm Condition report: Framed Jacques Joos is a French painter whose works have marked the contemporary landscape with their depth and expressiveness. He painted his first portraits in 1965, highlighting the interiority and intimacy of each subject he immortalized. His work reveals a deep understanding of the human soul. In 1976, Joos began to take a greater interest in drapery. The veil, initially sketched in a corner of his still lifes, gradually became the centerpiece of his compositions. Often placed carelessly on a structure, the drape began to occupy most of the space in his canvases. The artist masters the art of giving volume to the flat surface by playing with folds, light and shadow effects and transparencies. In the early 1980s, having just returned to his native Toulouse, he helped set up a fresco restoration workshop that was to become the largest in the south of France: Cahors cathedral, the chapel of Empress Eugénie in Biarritz, Saint-Pierre church in Moissac... In the 80s and 90s, he devoted himself fully to this studio, but continued to feed his creativity through frescoes. Like Fabio Rieti, he painted city walls (Toulouse, Paris) with trompe-l'œil that revived the daily lives of passers-by. From 2004 onwards, Joos introduced the technique of casting into his work, exploring themes of light and space. His latest creations, grouped under the theme "Nuits tentaculaires" and exhibited in 2011 at Galerie Art Sud, show a more expressionist and introspective approach. These darker, more interior paintings, often inspired by masterpieces of art history, depict the depths of the human condition. (MLD) Here we recognize one of the central figures in Eugène Delacroix's painting in the Louvre: The Death of Sardanapale, 1827.