From November 28, 2015
to January 30, 2016

In partnership with Mrs. Lorédana Harscoët-Maire, daughter of the artist, the gallery dedicated at the end of 2015 an exhibition to the painter André Maire (1898-1984). More than a hundred works made by the artist throughout his career were presented on this occasion.

The painter Emile Bernard took the young André Maire under his wing after the death of his parents. He introduced him to different techniques, and more generally advised him in his reading, in his artistic and personal choices.  André Maire chose to finish his military service in Indochina at the end of 1917 and discovered the fascinating site of Angkor, which would mark him for life. Back from Asia, he went to Italy with Emile Bernard and married his daughter Irene in Venice. The couple stayed there for seven years, running a small gallery where the painter offered his works for sale. The artist began to develop the technique of sepia, which allowed him to create large decorative compositions in which he expressed a taste for architecture. 
In 1930, André Maire won the Casa Velasquez Prize and spent two years in Spain. That same year, he bought a house in Burgundy, in Semur-en-Auxois, which became his home base. At the end of the 1930s, the painter discovered Egypt, then India, and at the end of the world conflict, he undertook a trip to Africa, along the Niger River.  The year 1947 marked his return to Asia, where he settled for ten years, returning to France only twice in 1951 and 1954. He stayed in Hanoi, Saigon and Dalat, where he was fascinated by the way of life of the people of the highlands and the liveliness of the banks of the Mekong. Finally, the painter went to Madagascar at the end of the 1950s.
André Maire's travels were generally of long duration and allowed him to explore not only the landscapes he observed, but also their inhabitants, to become familiar with cultures that were as different as they were fascinating. This humanistic vision characterizes most of his works.  From the 1930s onwards, he regularly exhibited in prestigious Parisian galleries, notably at Charpentier and the Georges Petit gallery, but also in Brussels at Isy Brachot.  He spent the last years of his life in the family home in Semur-en-Auxois, where he continued to paint, inhabited by reveries and memories of so many trips.

This retrospective was also an opportunity for visitors to discover the huge variety of media and techniques used by Maire. The work of this artist of a thousand talents is rich, solid, structured and constantly evolving. His portraits, landscapes, studies and sketches as well as his decorative paintings make him a surprising painter to discover, as much by his "pencil stroke", lively and agile, as by the choice of his subjects which all have a visual intensity intermingled with a subtle poetic dimension.

As part of the desire to discover this painter traveler, Mrs. Lorédana Harscoët, daughter of the artist but also granddaughter of the painter Emile Bernard, has done us the great honor of holding a conference in the gallery, the opportunity for this passionate to share a living memory of his father.