Jean PUY (1876 -1960) - Breton landscape

Jean Puy came from a family of industrialists. He obtained his bachelor's degree in literature and philosophy and began his basic studies in architectural drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon in 1895 and 1896.However, the teaching of the academic portraitist Tony Tollet inspired him to paint, and in 1898 he decided to go to Paris to study at the Académie Julian with Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant. Later, he turned to Eugène Carrière, in whose studio he met other painters, including Henri Matisse, André Derain, Charles Camoin and Henri Manguin. Mobilised in 1915, Puy was transferred to a camouflage unit where he was reunited with Camoin, Villon and Dunoyer de Segonzac. He spent the interwar period in Paris, but in 1939-1940, fearing the bombing of the capital, he moved back to Roanne. In 1939, he decorated the hall of honour of the Lycée du Parc in Lyon with a fresco The Meeting of Ulysses and Nausicaa.

Trained in the wake of Impressionism, Puy was a follower of the Nabis and knew the neo-impressionist technique of Paul Signac. During his first period in Paris, he followed what was considered modern technique, sharing the same preoccupations as Camoin, Derain, Matisse, Vlaminck and others who met regularly in Manguin's studio. This encounter is reflected in the subjects (Self-Portrait in Military Uniform, 1901, by Camoin, in response to Le Soldat de Puy), while with his Nude in the Studio, 1900, Puy began to develop new techniques based on colour and form. Of Matisse, with whom he shared the same model, Eugénie Frémissart, Puy wrote: "I owe a great deal to his advice, his encouragement and his friendship."A follower of the Fauve movement in which he was supported by Apollinaire, Puy was represented by several canvases at the Salon d'Automne of 1905, in the room that first prompted Louis Vauxcelles to denounce more modern paintings as "Fauvism", which led to the invention of the term "Fauvism". Important works from this period include Rest Under the Pines, 1905, The Pink Alley, circa 1905-1910, and Bouquet of Flowers, 1906. While his brother Michel Puy was one of the first defenders of Fauvism, both in his articles and in his book Le dernier état de la peinture (1911), Jean Puy was Fauvist less by intellect than by instinct for bright colours.

The stir caused by the Salle des Fauves at the Salon d'Automne in 1905 led to the presentation of Puy to the art dealer Ambroise Vollard, on the recommendation of Matisse. Vollard bought a large part of his works and commissioned him in 1919 to paint a series of illustrations for Le Père Ubu à la guerre, then Le Vase de fleurs de la mère Ubu in 1924 and Le Déjeuner de l'archevêque. It was also Vollard who commissioned him to decorate a hundred ceramic pieces (plates, vases, dishes, tiles).