Biography
Albert Marquet (1875-1947) was born in Bordeaux in 1875. He came to Paris at the age of fifteen. He attended the School of Decorative Arts, then Gustave Moreau‘s studio at the Beaux-Arts, where he met Rouault and Matisse. He exhibited in 1903 at the Salon d’Automne and in 1905 was included in the famous section called “Cages au fauves”. He had his first private exhibition in 1907, at Druet’s, then visited the European ports and settled in Marseille in 1915. Having broken with Fauvism, Marquet focused on balanced harmonies, with little variation in tone, whose accuracy of vision is astonishing. His watercolors and drawings are also remarkable. Back in Paris, it is always the water, the rivers, that tempt him. From his fifth floor window on the Quai aux Fleurs, he painted views of the Seine in “plunging perspective”. These quays, this Pont-Neuf, at all times of the day and in all seasons, he constantly remakes them, and it is always a different painting. In 1940, this tireless traveler was in Algiers. He returned to Paris in 1945 and, after a trip to Russia in 1947, he died the same year in Paris. This artist, quickly detached from Fauvism, never sought to please. Working for his own pleasure, and wishing to lead an independent life, he refused the Cross and the Institute.
An original painter, master of a disproportionate art rich in nuances, Marquet is represented in the main museums of modern art in the world.
