Emile Blondel
1893 - 1970

Emile Blondel was born on August 6, 1893 in Le Havre, France. Coming from a large family, he had to start working at the age of six. By 16 he was a ship’s boy on board a fishing boat off the coast of Newfoundland. He then worked unloading the ships at the quays of Le Havre, and became the pilot of the port before settling in St-Denis in 1925 and becoming a bus driver.

At this point Blondel began to paint in oils, even though he had painted with watercolors from a very early age. But he did not dedicate himself exclusively to painting until he went into retirement in 1950.

Blondel’s paintings show the modest suburban houses with their little patches of garden and crowds of small figures. He participated in the first international exhibition of naïve painting in Knokke-le-Zoute in Belgium in 1958. In 1950, he had his first solo exhibition in Paris, at the Galérie Cambacérès, and in New York. He had another solo exhibition in Paris in 1953, at the Galérie Conti; in 1955, at the Galérie Cambacérès and in 1953 in Le Havre. His work is in museums in Le Havre, Nice and Paris.

Blondel died in 1970 in Pavillions-sous-Bois, France.