257 - LOUIS ERNEST ANDRIEUX, known as FORTUNEY (1875–1951)

LOUIS ERNEST ANDRIEUX, known as FORTUNEY (1875–1951) Young Women at Their Toilets Pastel composition on three sheets; the sheet on the right is signed Dimensions, including frame: 25.5 x 42 cm His real name was Louis Ernest Fortuné Andrieux; he adopted the pseudonym “Fortuney” to avoid confusion with the politician Louis Andrieux. Born in 1875 in the Aude department to a modest family—his father was a cabinetmaker and his mother a homemaker—he became a student at the Toulouse School of Fine Arts. A friend of Rodin’s, he painted with him in the south of France, in Cagnes-sur-Mer. He was an expert in the use of pastels—which were very much in vogue during the Belle Époque—and excelled at rendering the velvety texture of fabrics and skin tones. A figurative painter with ties to Expressionism and Fauvism, and a pastel artist known for his elegant subjects, he shunned official art salons and contracts with art dealers. He painted numerous genre scenes depicting women in the streets of Paris before turning his attention to Mediterranean landscapes and the Estérel.