Ricardo Florès (1878–1918) - Notre-dame. Gray Weather, Paris

Ricardo FLORÈS
(Alençon, 1878 – Rennes, 1918)

Notre-Dame. Grey weather

Oil on canvas
46 x 55 cm without frame
65 x 74 with frame
1907

Exhibition: Fourth exhibition of the Société des Peintres du Paris Moderne in 1907 under number 98 entitled Notre-Dame. Grey weather

Son of a Peruvian father, Ricardo Georges Florez known as “Ricardo Florès” was born on October 20, 1878 in Alençon, Orne. It was in this same city that he entered the military engineering offices in 1894 as an auxiliary draftsman. Two years later, in 1896, Ricardo Florès was admitted to the Beaux-Arts in Paris.
His first artistic achievements revolved around the art of drawing and caricature. He will be published in various satirical magazines of the time such as Le Charivari for the best known. At the same time he will also illustrate various literary works for Maupassant, Richepin and others. His first known paintings are those sent from 1904 to the Salon d’Automne in Paris of which he will become a member a few years later. We will find Ricardo Florès at the Salon until 1913.
Indeed, when the First World War broke out, the artist enlisted in August 1914 at the Invalides as a foreign volunteer. From then on, he will exercise his art of caricature to describe his new environment of poilus, sketching them in their sad daily life. Wounded in Belgium at Mont Kemmel in June 1918, he died on his fortieth birthday in a military hospital in Rennes of septicemia, on October 20, 1918, his wound having become infected.

Our painting was exhibited under number 98 during the fourth exhibition of the Society of Painters of Modern Paris which was held at the Grand Palais des Champs-Élysées between February 5 and 25, 1907.