ANDRE FAVORY
"AU BORD DE LAC"
OIL ON CANVAS, SIGNED
FRANCE, C.1930
29 X 36 INCHES
André
Favory Favory was
born in Paris in 1889. He attended the Académie Julian, where
he became acquainted with Metzinger, Lhote, and Marie Laurencin. As was true
for many of the Cubists, Cezanne was an early and important influence.
Favory painted in a cubist style for the first few years of his career,
he began exhibiting works in 1909. By 1913 he had decided to make painting
his career, but in 1914 he was mobilized for war, which interrupted
his work until he began exhibiting again in 1919. Favory’s
experiences and the passing of time had changed his understanding of
art. The realities of the war had given him a deeper appreciation of
nature and life; he grew dissatisfied with the intellectualism of the
Cubist movement. In 1922 he made many excursions to Belgium where he
intensively studied the art of Peter Paul Rubens, whose work exerted
a tremendous influence. Favory became much more of a colorist, he began
painting nudes, large groups of extravagantly voluptuous bathers, and
female portraits in a very sensual, lyrical style. He exhibited regularly
at the Paris and Brussels Salons, including the Salon des Tuileries
in 1923-1924, Salon d’Automne from1921-1923, the Nouveau Salon
in 1921, at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1922. In the 1920’s
Favory’s works were shown at numerous galleries in Paris and in
Brussels, London, Amsterdam, New York, and Tokyo. These included
Galerie Druet, Galerie Berthe Weill, Galerie Sélection and Galerie
Le Centaur (both in Brussels). The most influential critics such as
Louis Vauxcelles very well received Favory’s paintings; he was
regarded as an extremely important artist, one of the masters of his
generation. Favory contracted a crippling illness, which put an early
end to his painting career, he had to stop working five years before
his death. He died at the age of 43 in 1932. Favory is represented in many museums in France, including the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris. Favory presented a painting to the Museum of Modern Western Art in Moscow in 1927; the painting is now in the Hermitage. |