366 - André DEVAMBEZ (1867–1943)

André DEVAMBEZ (1867–1943) Armistice of November 11, 1918 Oil on canvas Signed and dated lower left 46.5 x 55 cm Framed The condition report is available upon request at the following email address: contact@neo-encheres.com Description: Born in Paris into the world of printmaking and publishing, the son of Édouard Devambez, founder of the firm that bears his name, André Devambez trained under Gabriel Guay, a student of Jean-Léon Gérôme, then at the Académie Julian and the École des Beaux-Arts in the studios of Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Gustave Boulanger. Winner of the Prix de Rome in 1890, he spent five years at the Villa Medici. As a painter and illustrator, he contributed to *L'Illustration*, *Le Figaro illustré*, *Le Rire*, and *Fantasio*, illustrated works by Émile Zola and Claude Farrère, and made a name for himself with his bird’s-eye views of modern life, of which *La Charge*, now in the Musée d’Orsay, remains the most famous example. The Great War occupies a unique place in his work. He enlisted as a volunteer at the age of forty-seven, was seriously wounded in 1915, and was awarded the Croix de Guerre; in 1917, he published an album of twelve etchings dedicated to the conflict and created the triptych *La Pensée aux absents*. He thus joined the ranks of artists who documented the war, alongside François Flameng, Lucien Jonas, Georges Scott, Félix Vallotton, and the Breton artist Mathurin Méheut. A member of the Academy of Fine Arts, head of a studio at the École des Beaux-Arts from 1929 to 1937, and painter for the Ministry of Aviation beginning in 1934, he was the subject of a major exhibition at the Petit Palais in 2022.