The fruit basket - Maurice Brianchon (1899-1979)

An oil on canvas measuring 46X38 cm representing a basket of yellow fruits signed lower right work of youth circa 1922

Maurice Brianchon is a French painter, born January 11, 1899 in Fresnay-sur-Sarthe and died March 1, 1979 in Paris.

In 1917, Maurice Brianchon entered the National School of Fine Arts in Paris in the studio of Fernand Cormon and, in 1918, left this school to follow the courses of Paul Renouard and Eugène Édouard Morand (1853-1930) who had taught there since 1908. There he met Roland Oudot, Raymond Legueult, Joseph Inguimberty, François Desnoyer, and Jacques Adnet. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne in 1919. A trip to Belgium and the Netherlands introduced him to Flemish and Dutch painters through the museums he visited in Brussels, Antwerp, Bruges and Amsterdam. This is the time when he rereads the Masters of the past by Eugène Fromentin. He left the Decorative Arts.

In 1922, he became a member of the Salon d'Automne committee and took up a studio with his friend Raymond Legueult at 54 avenue du Maine in Paris. Jacques Rouché, director of the Paris Opera, asked him to create the costumes for the Griselidis ballet, the premiere of which was to take place on November 29, 1922. A grant from the School of Decorative Arts obtained by Raymond Legueult enabled them to , the two of them took a trip to Spain where they discovered at the Prado Museum the masters of Spanish painting whom they admired so much and from whom they made copies: Diego Vélasquez, Goya, Greco. In 1924, he received the Blumenthal Prize.

Still in the company of Legueult, he created the sets for La Naissance de la Lyre at the Paris Opera in 1925, the premiere of which took place on July 1, 1925. He was appointed professor of drawing at the École Estienne in Paris in October of the same year. On June 18, 1934, he married the painter Marguerite Louppe (1902-1988) whom he met at the Académie Julian as well as at the Académie de la Grande Chaumière, and took part in the Venice Biennale with six canvases. It was then that he left the common studio taken with Legueult, avenue du Maine.

In 1936, he became a professor at the National School of Decorative Arts in Paris.

In 1939 he received the Garden Club Prize from the Carnegie Institute. Then the Second World War broke out; mobilized he was assigned to the camouflage section where he found other colleagues. He created the sets and costumes for Valses nobles et sentimentales for the Paris Opera. He became a member of the committee of the Salon des Tuileries in 1940. He stayed very often in Paris and sometimes went on vacation to Carnac or Trouville in the summer.

Demobilized, he worked at the Opera and in his bright studio under the roof on the 8th floor of rue duAdvisor-Collignon in the district of La Muette in Paris, and produced the sets and costumes for Sylvia or the Nymph of Diana on a music by Léo Delibes in 1941. At the request of his friend Jacques Adnet, decorator for the Compagnie des arts français, in 1942 he produced several tapestry cartoons for Aubusson and the Gobelins on the theme of the festivities at the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte and, the same year, created for the Opéra de Paris the costumes for Animal Models, the music of which was by his friend Francis Poulenc. In 1943, in the company of his wife, he decorated the Paris Conservatory of Music and Dramatic Art with three wall panels. In 1945, Robert Rey commissioned him to decorate 74 plates for a service in Blanc de Sèvres.

Léon Deshairs presented him with the insignia of Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur and Luc-Albert Moreau sent him a note to compliment him in these terms: "Bravo my dear Brianchon, this ribbon recognizes not only your fine talent, but also your courageous attitude during the Occupation, your friends are delighted with this distinction". He worked again with Barrault and Renaud in the fall of 1948 for the sets and costumes for Marivaux's The Second Surprise of Love.

In 1949, he was appointed professor at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris. He counts among his students: Guy Bardone, André Brasilier, Bernard Cathelin, René Genis, Claude Guillemot, Paul Guiramand and Armand Sinko.