Joseph Lépine (1867-1943) “Painter at the easel” French Post-impressionist School

Joseph Louis François Lépine (1867-1943) “Painter at the easel”. Oil painting on canvas mounted on cardboard signed lower left. Early 20th century, French post-impressionist school.

Joseph Lépine was a French post-impressionist painter and a great colorist. Born in Rochefort, he completed his first studies in 1892. His teacher was Louis Cabié, a disciple of the Barbizon school of Bordeaux, who tried in vain to dissuade the young artist from turning to the Impressionist movement in vogue in Paris. Joseph Lépine’s first paintings were immediately noticed in 1894 and exhibited by the Société des Amis des Arts de Bordeaux.

In 1897, Joseph Lépine moved to Paris, where his first works were accepted at the Salon de la Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1897 and 1898. In the early 20th century, he became an associate member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and a member of the Salon des Indépendants in Paris, where he came into close contact with Gromaire, Matisse, Guérin, Dunoyer de Segonzac, and especially Paul Signac, with whom he would later become very close. Lépine’s painting is powerful, with vivid colors and strong contrasts. His brushstrokes, similar to those of Gustave Loiseau, are composed of broad, juxtaposed strokes. His bright yellows contrast with shadows whose edges are tinted with purple, as advocated by Signac. His neo-Impressionist technique of tonal division prompted the French government to purchase his first painting at the 1908 Salon des Indépendants (now in the Musée de Menton). In 1908 and 1909 he was invited to participate in the first two Salons of the Allied Artist’s Association at the Royal Albert Hall in London. From 1910 onwards, Joseph Lépine received numerous awards from the state and the major Parisian salons, as well as commissions from national museums. From 1920 onwards, Lépine frequented Maurice Denis and his contrasts gave way to lighter colours and thin, almost pointillist brushstrokes. The First World War dispersed the artist’s contacts and Lépine continued his career with only one friend, Paul Signac. His painting became more evanescent, bordering on abstraction. In 1933 in Bordeaux he achieved success, and many disciples and students fascinated by his style gathered around him; It is here that the painter Anders Osterlind reaches him and convinces him to return to Paris, introducing him to the Salon des Tuileries and the Gallery of Madame Bourdon, where he becomes a permanent painter together with Georges d’Espagnat, Othon Friesz and Abel Bertram.
Our painting belongs to his return to Paris, to the 1930s and to a style so powerful that it still manages to mix color with evanescence. The subject portrayed, a young painter on the Place du Tertre in Montmartre, perhaps one of his students, is unusual but well rooted in his style.
In its splendid original Montmartre frame.

Measure
canvas cm 35 x 28,5
frame cm 47 x 40