Yves Brayer

Yves Brayer

Yves Brayer was born in 1907 in Versailles.

Still a student at the Beaux Arts, he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants. Various scholarships and awards (notably the Prix de Rome which he received in 1930) allowed him to discover Europe and particularly the Mediterranean basin to which he remained attached throughout his life.

In 1934, he exhibited at the Galerie Charpentier and Paris discovered the astonishing original power of this 27-year-old painter.

After his demobilization in 1940, he lived sometimes in the Tarn, sometimes in Paris which he painted during the Occupation before illustrating its liberation.

The post-war period was marked by his discovery of Provence. He was fascinated by the diversity of the Alpilles, but above all by the wild expanses of the Camargue. While up to that point his palette had been limited to black, ochre, and red, he introduced greens, yellows, and blues.

His taste for graphic design naturally led him to practice the technique of engraving and lithography, through which he illustrated numerous works, including those of Cendrars, Montherlant, Baudelaire, Giono, Claudel, or Mistral.

His very personal journey (he was not associated with any of the artistic movements that marked the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century) gave him a unique place in the history of Art. Heir to Bonnard or Courbet, he paved the way for the French New Realism of the 1950s, of which Bernard Buffet would become the most brilliant representative.

A Yves Brayer museum was inaugurated in 1991 in Les Baux de Provence, one year after the painter's death on May 29, 1990.

(c) Natacha PELLETIER for PASSION ESTAMPES

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