382 - Yves BRAYER (1907–1990)

Yves BRAYER (1907–1990) View of the Village of Gordes Oil on canvas Signed lower right 53 x 64 cm Framed Description: Born in Versailles in 1907 and raised in Bourges, Yves Brayer moved to Paris in 1924, where he attended the Montparnasse art schools and later the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Jean-Louis Forain. Exhibiting at the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants as early as his student years, he received a travel grant to Spain in 1927, where the paintings at the Prado left a lasting impression on him; he then won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1930 following a stay in Morocco. An independent figurative artist and friend of Francis Gruber, he spent the 1930s and 1940s at a distance from artistic groups, even as the painters of *Forces nouvelles* and *La Réalité poétique* were making their mark around him. He settled in Cordes-sur-Ciel in 1940—where a museum dedicated to him opened in 1960—and began spending time in Provence every year starting in 1945. The Alpilles, which Vincent van Gogh had painted from Saint-Rémy, and the Camargue became his favorite subjects; this Provençal landscape is a defining feature of his work.