Jacques LAPLACE (1890 -1955) - Landscape with poplars

A shy student at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon between 1905 and 1910, Laplace went on to work as a draftsman for a stained-glass manufacturer, before becoming a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts de Lyon. There, for 35 years, he trained several generations of artists, including Fusaro, Truphémus and Cottavoz (who formed the Sanzistes in 1948.) In 1914, he was part of the “Bande à Béraud”, a group that came together at the end of the war to react against the bourgeois academicism that dominated Lyon. The Ziniars group was born in 1920.

Its main medium was watercolor. However, he never locked himself into any one technique: he would first set up his work in pencil, then paint with broad strokes of color and outline with a brush. In watercolor, he lets the stains spread out without precise shapes. He completes his work with pen strokes and nervous cross-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 to exhibit in Paris. He also exhibited at the Galerie des Archers, run by Ponchon, then at the Galerie des Jacobins.