74 - MENARD, René (1862–1930). “Lake Geneva, Sunset.” Oil on canvas, signed lower left, 72 x 90 cm. Framed. Annotations on the back. Known for his symbolist and twilight landscapes, he participated in the Salon der Sezession in Munich and the Salon de la Libre Esthétique in Brussels in 1897. In June 1899, he joined the Société nouvelle de peintres et de sculpteurs, with his first group exhibition held at the Georges Petit Gallery in Paris in March 1900[4]. Several solo exhibitions were subsequently dedicated to him at the Georges Petit Gallery. He was appointed professor at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière in 1904. He was a member of the group known as the Bande Noire. In 1921, Ménard exhibited at the Salon des Douze alongside Henri Martin and Edmond Aman-Jean. Galleries in Buffalo and Boston promoted his work in the United States. Numerous government commissions crowned his career: the series for the Hautes Études at the Sorbonne, the Faculty of Law, the fresco *Les Atomes* for the Institute of Chemistry, and a commission for the Caisse des Dépôts in Marseille. His art combines a rigorous and clear classicism with a diffuse and dreamlike style. In 1894, Victor Soulier wrote in *L’Art et la Vie* that he found in it “visions of a peaceful nature, bathed in dawn and twilight, where the soul seems to be rejuvenated by the purity of the dawn and to draw in the biblical grace that flows from the dawn.”