Albert Marquet

Biography of Albert Marquet

Fond of drawing, Albert Marquet went to Paris in 1890, at the age of fifteen. He entered the National School of Decorative Arts in 1892, where he met Matisse, who was to be one of his closest friends all his life. From 1895 to 1899, Marquet joined the latter at the School of Beaux-Arts and studied in Gustave Moreau’s studio in 1897. In 1900, Marquet and Matisse worked together on the decoration of the Grand Palais, especially created for the Exposition Universelle in Paris. The first paintings of Marquet at this period were highly influenced by the Fauves. In 1901, he took part in the Salon des Indépendants with ten paintings. In 1905, he exhibited with the group of Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck at the Salon d’Automne. He started his pier views series the same year. In 1907, he had his first personal exhibition at the Druet Gallery. He exhibited in many countries, did numerous travels, especially in Alger, where he married his wife. He went to Germany, Holland, North Africa, Russia and Scandinavia. From 1940 to 1945, willing to run away from the German invasion, he settled in Alger and only came back to Paris in 1945.

Albert Marquet was a landscape painter who showed a sensitive way of looking at the world in his paintings. A friend of Matisse’s and Derain’s, he retained a sense of colour and light from his fauve period. He painted Paris and its neighbourhoods, the Seine bankside, streets lighted at night, Paris under the snow or under a burning sun. He was an artist of the post-impressionnist generation, that, created a new aesthetics at the beginning of the twentieth century. Thereby, he took part in 1905 in the « Fauve » exhibition, whose shocking way to present a brutal vision of forms and colours was a scandal. Later, he left this style to look for a tonal harmony. One of his favourite subjects was the representation of the Seine and its river bank, at various instants of the day and different seasons, particularly showing the artist’s taste for grey, rainy and mysterious atmospheres. From 1919 to 1939 he stayed in Poissy, Triel and Méricourt, where he painted landscapes of the Seine. At the beginning of the year 1939, he settled in La Frette-sur-Seine. There, he painted his wife sewing (Intérieur à la Frette) and his friend Desnoyer painting (L’Atelier de la Frette). Albert Marquet developped his own style, influenced by various impressions he got during his travels. He used pure colours and liked painting the reflection of light on water. His paintings follow the impressionnist tradition. Owing to his travels, harbour scenes were a very important subject in his work.