Albert Andre Wall Decorations

Framed watercolor by Albert Andre signed lower right. Measures 17" x 15" including frame and 12" x 9" sight. Provenance: Sothebys Andre came to Paris in 1889 as an industrial designer. At the age of 23 he enrolled at the studio of William Bouguereau at the Académie Julian, where he met Ranson, Louis Valtat and the young poet and dramatist Henry Bataille, who at the time was training as a painter. He illustrated L'étang de Berre by Charles Maurras and Les Petites Alliées by Claude Farrère. He produced cartoons for tapestries for the Beauvais factory. In his youth he worked in Paris and Loudun, but later settled in the Midi, where he became curator of the museum in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, building up a major collection of contemporary art, including works by Monet, Renoir, Bonnard, Vuillard, Matisse and Despiau. In 1923, as a friend of Renoir, he compiled his recollections of the painter in a preface to an album of collotypes of his works. He was initially influenced in his painting by Delacroix, and it was Cézanne's paintings that helped him discover how to give the impression of volume using colour: warm tones for illuminated surfaces and cool colours for shadow. But it was undoubtedly Renoir who had the most profound influence on him, especially as it was Renoir who noticed his paintings in 1894 and introduced him to Paul Durand...