Jacques LAPLACE (1890 - 1955) - Village

Jacques LAPLACE (Lyon,1890 - id., 1955) - Village

Shy pupil at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon between 1905 and 1910, Laplace then worked as a draftsman at a stained glass manufacturer before becoming a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Lyon. He trained for 35 years several generations of artists such as Fusaro, Truphémus and Cottavoz (who formed the Sansistes in 1948). In 1914, it was part of the «Bande à Béraud», which regrouped at the end of the war to react against the bourgeois academicism that dominated Lyon. This is how the Ziniars group was born in 1920.

He is mainly illustrated with watercolor. He gives this technique full freedom to his instinct, especially when he describes the landscapes along the banks of the Saône. We find something of Fauvism and Cézanne in his use of color, but also the power of certain compositions of Derain. The places represented in his works are very easily identifiable. He owns a small house in Chaponnay en Isère, where he spends his holidays. This allows him to realize picturesque landscapes.

However, he never locks himself into a technique: he proceeds by placing in pencil, then painted with large touches of color and draws the contours with a brush. In watercolour, he lets the stains spread without precise forms. He completes his work with strokes and nervous hatching.
He exhibited at the Salon d'Automne in Lyon until 1923, then at the Salon du Sud-Est until the end of his life. He refused any exhibition in Paris. He also exhibited at the Archers Gallery, held by Ponchon, then at the Jacobins Gallery.

Dead in 1955, Combet-Descombes, paid tribute to him at the Salon du Sud-Est with a retrospective in 1957.