Description
Antoine Blanchard
Place de la Concorde
Oil on canvas
13 x 18 inches
Signed LL
Condition: Excellent
COA included with the sale provided by REHS with submission to the digital Catalogue Raisonne
My father; being French, I grew up across the quai on Quai Anatole France and walked across the bridge to view this angle of Paris over 500 times. Countless other millions of lucky people have seen the same and it cant be removed from the mind due to its sheer magnificence. Place De La Concorde is iconic in Paris and this spectacular painting by Blanchard absolutely does it justice. Ready to hang on your wall with full COA.
Antoine Blanchard, whose real name was Marcel Masson, was born in France on November 15, 1910, in a small village near the banks of the Loire. He was the eldest of three children. His father, a carver, managed a small carpentry and furniture shop. Antoine would watch his father hand carve the furniture and began to display an artistic flair early in life. His parents sent him to Blois for drawing lessons to foster this talent. He continued his training in Rennes at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied sculpture and drawing. Upon completing his studies, he was awarded the school’s highest award, the Prix du Ministre.
By 1932, Blanchard left Rennes and traveled to Paris to study. He enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and, after a few years, entered the competition for the Prix de Rome. It was in Paris that he developed a love for the city and its street life.
In 1939, Blanchard married a young woman he met in Paris. The Second World War broke out in September of that year, and he was called up for military service. It was not until 1942 that he would return to his art. His daughter Nicole was born in 1944 and would later follow in her father’s footsteps working as an artist under the name A. Champeau. Around the time Nicole was born, Blanchard’s father passed away. This compelled him to return to his hometown and run the family carpentry business, giving him little time to paint.
A cityscape of Place de la Concorde in Paris
Place de la Concorde
Blanchard’s second daughter, Evelyn, was born in 1947. By 1948, he had given his younger brother control of the family business, allowing him to return to Paris to paint. By the time Blanchard returned to Paris, the city had changed. Blanchard longed for the bygone days, particularly the Belle Époque period (about 1871 to 1914). Blanchard began reading and studying all the material on the period he could find.
Many of the subjects and scenes Blanchard portrayed were taken from images from photographs and postcards created in the 1890s. He would often work on paintings for days or months before he finally felt they were complete. Mrs. Paule Larde comments in her book Antoine Blanchard, His Life His Work that “he has always spent much time on his work. This explains why his production has always been rather limited, unlike the hurried and multiple proliferations of some modern artists… Delicate touches of luminous and shimmering tones produce a marvelous impression of harmony, brightness and light. Alternate shadings and lights, sensitive and mellow blending allow the artist to attain a hardly-ever reached degree of grace, of radiant and glimmering freshness.”
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