Armand Point

Biography of Armand Point ( 1861-1932 )

Born in Algiers, the young Armand Point grew up in Paris with an aunt after the death of both his parents, struck down by cholera and typhus, when he was only 6 years old. His first teacher was Auguste Herst, his drawing teacher at school who gave him a solid foundation. He gave him a taste for art with such passion that Armand Point abandoned his studies and returned to Algiers at the age of 17 in order to devote himself to drawing and painting. His second master and protector was the orientalist painter Hippolyte Lazerges with whom he lived in Algiers. The young artist worked assiduously and sent his first painting to the 1882 Salon which was acquired by the State. From 1884 onwards, he travelled to the Bou-Saâda oasis which offered him the subject of numerous paintings between 1884 and 1891. After his first successes, he was chosen to paint some of the decorative panels of the Algerian pavilion at the 1889 Universal Exhibition.

That same year, he had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Georges Petit and then turned resolutely towards symbolism after returning to France in 1891 and meeting the "Sâr" Joséphin Péladan. This mysterious character, like so many at that time, revealed to him a strange universe, at once romantic, spiritualist and bizarre, of which he had established himself as the uncontested magician.
This moment coincides with difficulties in his marriage and his installation with Hélène Linder, his new muse and companion. Together they frequented symbolist circles and the artist participated in the five salons of the Rose-Croix from 1892 to 1896, while continuing to exhibit at the Salon. A trip to Italy, thanks to a grant he obtained through Puvis de Chavannes, proved decisive in Armand Point's artistic vision, as he appropriated the aesthetics of the great Italian masters Leonardo and Raphael. The pastel portraits of Helene that he produced in the 1890s are among his most delicate and inspired works. He exhibited ten of them at the 1893 Salon.

In 1896, Armand Point created the Haute-Claire workshops in Marlotte with a dozen collaborators practicing cabinet making, sculpture, ceramics, goldsmithing, brassware, embroidery, with the aim of always "fighting the hideous hydra of materialism". For fifteen years, Haute-Claire produced furniture, decorative objects, jewelry, enamel and carved and gilded frames, all of great refinement.

With the Great War, the artist's aspirations changed. If he continued to paint portraits and symbolist subjects, he formed a lasting friendship with Armand Guillaumin in the Creuse region, with whom he painted the magnificent landscapes of Crozant. Then, during the winters of 1919, 1921, 1923, we find Armand Point in Murol again painting sumptuous landscapes under the snow, thus participating in the fame of the "School of Murols". The museum of painters of the school of Murol recently paid tribute to him through an exhibition in the summer of 2012.