Louis Valtat (1869-1952)

Professions: Painter; Flower painter; Landscape painter; Etcher; Wood cutter

Madame Valtat et son fils
Louis Valtat , Suzanne Valtat, Le jardin d'Agay
PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE FRENCH COLLECTION LOUIS VALTAT 1869-1952 CHOISEL
Louis Valtat , 1869-1952 Paysage d'Espagne Oil on canvas

Louis Valtat Related Content
Louis Valtat at Auction Now
Louis Valtat Sold at Auction

Louis Valtat Biography

(b Dieppe, 8 Aug 1869; d ?Paris, 2 Jan 1952). French painter, printmaker and stage designer. He spent much of his youth in Versailles, moving in 1887 to Paris, where he studied under Gustave Moreau at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and under Jules Dupré at the Académie Julian. There he met Maurice Denis, Pierre Bonnard, Edouard Vuillard and Albert André. With a keen interest in both artistic precedents and contemporary trends, he absorbed in the mid-1890s the chief tenets of Impressionism, van Gogh’s work and Pointillism before slowly developing his own style. In 1895 he collaborated with Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and André on the set of Aurélien-François Lugné-Poë’s play Chariot de terre cuite , performed at the Théâtre de l’Oeuvre, Paris. Under Toulouse-Lautrec’s influence, his own works darkened both in colour and sentiment, for example Chez Maxim’s (1895; Geneva, Petit Pal.), in which he depicted two gaunt, severe-looking women seated in a murky café. By 1896 he painted contemporary French life with an overall sunnier, more optimistic air, as in Water Carriers at Arcachon (1897; Geneva, Petit Pal.), in which he referred to van Gogh, also looking to Fauvism for his use of bold colours.

Back to the Top