René Charles Edmond HIS (1877-1960) - All Saints

René Charles Edmond HIS (Colombes, 1877 - Paris, 1960)

All Saints

Oil on canvas
Signed and dated 1897 lower left
33 x 41 cm

Pupil of Jules LEFEBVRE, Tony ROBERT-FLEURY, Henri BIVA and Léon TANZI.

In addition to being present in regional exhibitions (Rouen, Le Havre, Besançon, Toulouse ...), HIS exhibited at the age of 20 in Paris at the Salon of French Artists which he became a member in 1900. He obtained an honorable mention in 1898, a third class medal in 1900 and an honorable mention the same year at the Universal Exhibition.

Under a reputation as a living reclusive man, we still know him travel on the French Riviera and in Algeria which will be for him a source of inspiration for the realization of some Provençal and Orientalist works. He also entered the Léon GERARD gallery where his most emblematic landscapes were exhibited.

The painting presented here is a work apart from the corpus of the artist by its precocity - 1897, date of its first participation in the Salon, by its style and by its subject. It shows here the influence of the academic teaching of his first teachers LEFEBVRE and ROBERT-FLEURY embellished with a note of symbolism then in full pictorial expression at the end of the 19th century. To this day, the known works of this type in the production of René HIS remain very rare.
Indeed, under the influence of BIVA and TANZI, his last masters, HIS will move to a very meticulous style with nature as an exclusive source of inspiration. He will then seek perfection in his representation of the banks of woods and rivers; types of works for which he is today particularly famous in France and Great Britain.

Museums: Rennes, Abbeville, Senlis, Charleville, Cahors, Avallon ...