Élisée Maclet
Encyclopedia
Élisée Maclet was a French impressionist painter.
. He was born there in 1881. Since his family was poor, he began to work at an early age, as an assistant to his father. Picardy is renowned for its roses and Maclet used to say that he was born among cabbages and roses. By the mysterious alchemy of genius, the gardener’s son wielded a painter’s brush almost as soon as he swung a pick and hoe. His father was not only a gardener, but also the sexton in the village church, so the boy inevitably became a choirboy. That brought him to the attention of the local cure, Father Delval. Father Delval was both the parish priest and painter and often on fine Sundays, when Vespers were over, he and young Maclet set out to sketch and paint along the roads or the banks of ponds.
Puvis de Chavannes
found the same scenes a source of inspiration and on an April Sunday in 1892, he saw some the work of this twelve-year-old boy was doing beside his clerical mentor. The great artist was so impressed that he sought out the elder Maclet and asked that he allow the boy to study with him. “My son is a gardener, and he will remain a gardener,” was the father’s reply.
In spite of paternal opposition, Elysee Maclet gave up gardening for art. Going to Montmartre, however, did not mean immediate fame. He painted, of course, but earned his living by varnishing iron bedsteads at first; a few months later he got a job decorating the floats for the gala nights at the Moulin Rouge. He also washed dishes in one restaurant; opened oysters in another; served as chef on a ship sailing from Marseilles for Indochina; and when he finally returned to Paris, he painted dolls in crinolines and exhibited them at the Salon de Hurnoristes. But in spite of all these occupations, he found time to paint.
When Maclet arrived in Montmartre, much of the country charm of the area still existed and he put it on canvas, even before Utrillo did so. Biographers have rather tented to pass over in silence the services Maclet rendered to Utrillo. Maclet knew practically all the future great painters of his time, Utrillo among them and it is certain that he aided the star-crossed
genius, though his own reluctance to have people write about him may account for the fact that we know of it only through oblique remarks in the records of the time. Maclet painted the “Lapin Agile” and the “Moulin de la Galette” and the ‘Maison de Mimi Pinson” several years before Utrillo did painted them. He painted most often in winter and in this period, skillfully suggesting the snow by leaving bare white spaces in his canvas or paper.
In a short time Maclet won a circle of sincere admirers. The art dealer
Dosbourg bought his work, which gave him a fairy reliable source of income and enabled him to devote more time than ever to his painting. From Montmartre he launched out into the suburbs of Paris, painting them with the same indulgent tenderness with which he treated the scenes of Montmartre.
When war broke out in 1914, Maclet served as a medical attendant in a temporary hospital run by the Little Sisters of the Poor
. That allowed him to spend his periods of leave back in Montmartre, where he stayed at the ‘Lapin Agile” thanks to the hospitality of his friend Frede. Maclet slept in the cabaret hall and paid for his food by washing dishes
and polishing the copper pots. On one of these leaves, he painted two small pictures of Sacre-Coeur and the Moulin de la Galette
which he sold to a Mr. Deibler, who combined his profession of official executioner with a love of the fine art
s. Mr. Deibler was not his only patron and admirer. Francis Carco, the mayor of Montmartre: the innkeeper known as ”Le pere gay”; the famous writer Colette; the American art dealer Hugo Perlsall regarded him as the equal of the other great painters of the period. Famous dealers of the time, such as Pierre Menant and Matho Kleimann-Boch hung Maclet’s work beside the paintings of Van Gogh
and Picasso in their galleries.
When the war ended, Maclet went back to Montmartre to live. In 1918 Francis Carco felt the painter needed to widen his horizons and sent him to Dieppe to stay in a house which Carco rented on a yearly basis. Soon all the wealth of the seacoast scenes appeared on Maclet’s canvases. He spent a year in Dieppe and then returned to Montmartre and to his former subjects. Montmartre was changing, new apartment buildings were going up, taking the place of the stretches of verdures; the Ourcq Canal would soon disappear, the last of the landry boats were slowly gliding down the Seine. With his palette and brush and knife, Maclet seized them all and immortalized them.
After the First World War, his views of Paris earned him an increasing amount of recognition and success. Writers Colette, Francis Carco, and other well-known figures, as well as an American art dealer were all great supporters. Max Jacob wrote about him. In approximately 1920, a wealthy supporter gave him the means to spend an extended period in the Mediterranean. He returned with sumptuous paintings of the Mediterranean, all reminiscent of paintings by Matisse.
In 1923 Maclet entered into a contact with a wealthy Austrian manufacturer, Baron Von Fray. One of the conditions of his contract was that he leave Paris for the south of France. Baron Von Frey sensed that Maclet would know how to handle the brilliant light and intense colors of the Midi. The Baron’s judgment was vindicated only a few hours after Maclet’s arrival in Arles, when the son of an old and famous friend of Van Gogh’s said to him, “Not since Van Gogh have I seen a painter use color as pure as you do.” Maclet stayed in the region from 1924 to 1928. He painted in Orange, Vaison-La Romaine, La Ciotat
, Cassis, Golfe Juan, Antibes, Cagnes, Saint-Paul-de-Vence
, Ville-Franche, Nice, Menton, San Remo
, sending back to Von Frey glowing landscapes and glorious floral still life
s. Von Frey reserved for himself almost the total output of this period and sent most of them to America, where wealthy collectors vied to buy them at high prices.
Many magazines devoted artisted to Maclet, and an exhibition of his work was presented in Paris in 1928. Von Frey also had the satisfaction of seeing paintings by Maclet purchased by important museums. But like some years later when the museums of Lyons, Grenoble, and Monte Carlo
purchased his work.
At the end of 1928, Maclet went to paint in Corsica. He spent 1929 and 1930 in Brittany and then went back to his native Picardy to paint. In the middle of 1933 he fell seriously ill and was unable to paint for long, long months. After 1935 he resumed his studies of Paris and in 1945 presented a large exhibition of his work under the title ”Around the Moulin” which elicited from Andre Warnod the following glowing tribute: “What a happy spectacle to see Maclet paint. He begins by covering the top of his canvas with paint, the sky, the clouds. Then he attacks the chimneys and then the roofs, and then, floor by floor, he arrives at the street level of the houses… Under his brush, all becomes miraculously organized; he places the figures where they should be, and when he has painted the last paving block at the very bottom of the canvas, then he signs it. And the painting is finished; a happy painting expressing the joy of living.”
In 1957 a Parisian gallery organized a restrospective exhibition of Maclet’s work, and the solid rise in the prices of Maclet’s paintings dates from that retrospective exhibition. When Maclet made sporadic visits to Paris during his years in the Midi, the painters of Montmartre and Montparnasse considered him a painter on the rise; the canvases he had produced while he was in the south of France showed that the peasant from Picardy had become a master. But the general public in France did not grasp his importance and value until 1957.
Five years of life remained to the painter, years beautifully described by Marcel Guicheteau and Jean Cottel in these words: “Maclet had returned to his first loves, to his first poems; but it was with all his experience, all his wisdom that the old man now bent over the familiar motifs; his minor song had become a song full of light. In the evening of his life he could repeat himself without copying himself; explain himself without humiliating himself; remember himself without destroying himself. He had brought his work to such a degree of perfection that each painting from then on justified itself by references to earlier work and conferred, in a certain sense, a retroactive value on those works of a far-off past. The artist had reached the state wherein his work soundly established, across the years, its various pictorial values like echoes answering each other at intervals of ten, fifteen, twenty years, all singing the same harmony.” The gardener from Picardy became a master painter.
^ Art32
Elisée Maclet Biography:
Biography
Emile Elisee Maclet was the son of a gardener who lived in Lyons-en Santerre in PicardyPicardy
This article is about the historical French province. For other uses, see Picardy .Picardy is a historical province of France, in the north of France...
. He was born there in 1881. Since his family was poor, he began to work at an early age, as an assistant to his father. Picardy is renowned for its roses and Maclet used to say that he was born among cabbages and roses. By the mysterious alchemy of genius, the gardener’s son wielded a painter’s brush almost as soon as he swung a pick and hoe. His father was not only a gardener, but also the sexton in the village church, so the boy inevitably became a choirboy. That brought him to the attention of the local cure, Father Delval. Father Delval was both the parish priest and painter and often on fine Sundays, when Vespers were over, he and young Maclet set out to sketch and paint along the roads or the banks of ponds.
Puvis de Chavannes
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes
Pierre Puvis de Chavannes was a French painter, who became the president and co-founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and whose work influenced many other artists.-Life:...
found the same scenes a source of inspiration and on an April Sunday in 1892, he saw some the work of this twelve-year-old boy was doing beside his clerical mentor. The great artist was so impressed that he sought out the elder Maclet and asked that he allow the boy to study with him. “My son is a gardener, and he will remain a gardener,” was the father’s reply.
In spite of paternal opposition, Elysee Maclet gave up gardening for art. Going to Montmartre, however, did not mean immediate fame. He painted, of course, but earned his living by varnishing iron bedsteads at first; a few months later he got a job decorating the floats for the gala nights at the Moulin Rouge. He also washed dishes in one restaurant; opened oysters in another; served as chef on a ship sailing from Marseilles for Indochina; and when he finally returned to Paris, he painted dolls in crinolines and exhibited them at the Salon de Hurnoristes. But in spite of all these occupations, he found time to paint.
When Maclet arrived in Montmartre, much of the country charm of the area still existed and he put it on canvas, even before Utrillo did so. Biographers have rather tented to pass over in silence the services Maclet rendered to Utrillo. Maclet knew practically all the future great painters of his time, Utrillo among them and it is certain that he aided the star-crossed
Star-crossed
"Star-crossed" or "star-crossed lovers" is a phrase describing a pair of lovers whose relationship is often thwarted by outside forces. The term encompasses other meanings, but originally means the pairing is being "thwarted by a malign star" or that the stars are working against the relationship...
genius, though his own reluctance to have people write about him may account for the fact that we know of it only through oblique remarks in the records of the time. Maclet painted the “Lapin Agile” and the “Moulin de la Galette” and the ‘Maison de Mimi Pinson” several years before Utrillo did painted them. He painted most often in winter and in this period, skillfully suggesting the snow by leaving bare white spaces in his canvas or paper.
In a short time Maclet won a circle of sincere admirers. The art dealer
Art dealer
An art dealer is a person or company that buys and sells works of art. Art dealers' professional associations serve to set high standards for accreditation or membership and to support art exhibitions and shows.-Role:...
Dosbourg bought his work, which gave him a fairy reliable source of income and enabled him to devote more time than ever to his painting. From Montmartre he launched out into the suburbs of Paris, painting them with the same indulgent tenderness with which he treated the scenes of Montmartre.
When war broke out in 1914, Maclet served as a medical attendant in a temporary hospital run by the Little Sisters of the Poor
Little Sisters of the Poor
The Little Sisters of the Poor is a Roman Catholic religious order for women. It was founded in the 19th century by Saint Jeanne Jugan near Rennes, France. Jugan felt the need to care for the many impoverished elderly who lined the streets of French towns and cities.This led her to welcome an...
. That allowed him to spend his periods of leave back in Montmartre, where he stayed at the ‘Lapin Agile” thanks to the hospitality of his friend Frede. Maclet slept in the cabaret hall and paid for his food by washing dishes
Dishwashing
Dish-washing is the process of cleaning cooking utensils, dishes, cutlery and other items. This is either achieved by hand in a sink or using dishwasher and may take place in a kitchen, utility room, scullery or elsewhere...
and polishing the copper pots. On one of these leaves, he painted two small pictures of Sacre-Coeur and the Moulin de la Galette
Moulin de la Galette
The Moulin de la Galette is a windmill and associated businesses situated near the top of the district of Montmartre in Paris. Since the 17th century the windmill has been known for more than just its milling capabilities...
which he sold to a Mr. Deibler, who combined his profession of official executioner with a love of the fine art
Fine art
Fine art or the fine arts encompass art forms developed primarily for aesthetics and/or concept rather than practical application. Art is often a synonym for fine art, as employed in the term "art gallery"....
s. Mr. Deibler was not his only patron and admirer. Francis Carco, the mayor of Montmartre: the innkeeper known as ”Le pere gay”; the famous writer Colette; the American art dealer Hugo Perlsall regarded him as the equal of the other great painters of the period. Famous dealers of the time, such as Pierre Menant and Matho Kleimann-Boch hung Maclet’s work beside the paintings of Van Gogh
Vincent van Gogh
Vincent Willem van Gogh , and used Brabant dialect in his writing; it is therefore likely that he himself pronounced his name with a Brabant accent: , with a voiced V and palatalized G and gh. In France, where much of his work was produced, it is...
and Picasso in their galleries.
When the war ended, Maclet went back to Montmartre to live. In 1918 Francis Carco felt the painter needed to widen his horizons and sent him to Dieppe to stay in a house which Carco rented on a yearly basis. Soon all the wealth of the seacoast scenes appeared on Maclet’s canvases. He spent a year in Dieppe and then returned to Montmartre and to his former subjects. Montmartre was changing, new apartment buildings were going up, taking the place of the stretches of verdures; the Ourcq Canal would soon disappear, the last of the landry boats were slowly gliding down the Seine. With his palette and brush and knife, Maclet seized them all and immortalized them.
After the First World War, his views of Paris earned him an increasing amount of recognition and success. Writers Colette, Francis Carco, and other well-known figures, as well as an American art dealer were all great supporters. Max Jacob wrote about him. In approximately 1920, a wealthy supporter gave him the means to spend an extended period in the Mediterranean. He returned with sumptuous paintings of the Mediterranean, all reminiscent of paintings by Matisse.
In 1923 Maclet entered into a contact with a wealthy Austrian manufacturer, Baron Von Fray. One of the conditions of his contract was that he leave Paris for the south of France. Baron Von Frey sensed that Maclet would know how to handle the brilliant light and intense colors of the Midi. The Baron’s judgment was vindicated only a few hours after Maclet’s arrival in Arles, when the son of an old and famous friend of Van Gogh’s said to him, “Not since Van Gogh have I seen a painter use color as pure as you do.” Maclet stayed in the region from 1924 to 1928. He painted in Orange, Vaison-La Romaine, La Ciotat
La Ciotat
La Ciotat is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region in southern France. It is part of the metropolitan area of Marseille Provence. La ciotat is located to the east of Marseille at an equal distance from Marseille and Toulon...
, Cassis, Golfe Juan, Antibes, Cagnes, Saint-Paul-de-Vence
Saint-Paul, Alpes-Maritimes
Saint-Paul or Saint-Paul-de-Vence is a commune in the Alpes-Maritimes department in southeastern France. One of the oldest medieval towns on the French Riviera, it is well-known for its modern and contemporary art museums and galleries such as Fondation Maeght which is located nearby.The property...
, Ville-Franche, Nice, Menton, San Remo
Sanremo
Sanremo or San Remo is a city with about 57,000 inhabitants on the Mediterranean coast of western Liguria in north-western Italy. Founded in Roman times, the city is best known as a tourist destination on the Italian Riviera. It hosts numerous cultural events, such as the Sanremo Music Festival...
, sending back to Von Frey glowing landscapes and glorious floral still life
Still life
A still life is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which may be either natural or man-made...
s. Von Frey reserved for himself almost the total output of this period and sent most of them to America, where wealthy collectors vied to buy them at high prices.
Many magazines devoted artisted to Maclet, and an exhibition of his work was presented in Paris in 1928. Von Frey also had the satisfaction of seeing paintings by Maclet purchased by important museums. But like some years later when the museums of Lyons, Grenoble, and Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo
Monte Carlo is an administrative area of the Principality of Monaco....
purchased his work.
At the end of 1928, Maclet went to paint in Corsica. He spent 1929 and 1930 in Brittany and then went back to his native Picardy to paint. In the middle of 1933 he fell seriously ill and was unable to paint for long, long months. After 1935 he resumed his studies of Paris and in 1945 presented a large exhibition of his work under the title ”Around the Moulin” which elicited from Andre Warnod the following glowing tribute: “What a happy spectacle to see Maclet paint. He begins by covering the top of his canvas with paint, the sky, the clouds. Then he attacks the chimneys and then the roofs, and then, floor by floor, he arrives at the street level of the houses… Under his brush, all becomes miraculously organized; he places the figures where they should be, and when he has painted the last paving block at the very bottom of the canvas, then he signs it. And the painting is finished; a happy painting expressing the joy of living.”
In 1957 a Parisian gallery organized a restrospective exhibition of Maclet’s work, and the solid rise in the prices of Maclet’s paintings dates from that retrospective exhibition. When Maclet made sporadic visits to Paris during his years in the Midi, the painters of Montmartre and Montparnasse considered him a painter on the rise; the canvases he had produced while he was in the south of France showed that the peasant from Picardy had become a master. But the general public in France did not grasp his importance and value until 1957.
Five years of life remained to the painter, years beautifully described by Marcel Guicheteau and Jean Cottel in these words: “Maclet had returned to his first loves, to his first poems; but it was with all his experience, all his wisdom that the old man now bent over the familiar motifs; his minor song had become a song full of light. In the evening of his life he could repeat himself without copying himself; explain himself without humiliating himself; remember himself without destroying himself. He had brought his work to such a degree of perfection that each painting from then on justified itself by references to earlier work and conferred, in a certain sense, a retroactive value on those works of a far-off past. The artist had reached the state wherein his work soundly established, across the years, its various pictorial values like echoes answering each other at intervals of ten, fifteen, twenty years, all singing the same harmony.” The gardener from Picardy became a master painter.
^ Art32
Elisée Maclet Biography:
- 1881 Born, “Jules-Emile-Elisée MACLET” in Lyons-en Santerre , (Lyon) Picardy, France
- 1892 “discovered” sketching in a Picardy field by artist Puvis de Chavannes
- 1906 Set-up studio in Montmartre and became friends with the writer, Collette.
- 1907 - 1908 decorated floats for evening shows at the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre.
- 1909 Chef on a ship from Marseilles to Indochina
- 1912 Returned to Paris
- 1914 Served as a medical attendant in a temporary hospital run by The Little Sisters of the Poor, when the war broke out
- 1918 - 1919 painted seascapes in Dieppe,in a house loaned by Francis Carco
- 1919 Returned to Montmartre
- 1920 Exhibited by art dealers Dosbourg and Hugo Perlsall
- 1923 - 1928 moved to Arles, the South of France, subsidized by Austrian patron, Baron Von Fray
- 1928 Moved to the island of Corsica in the Mediterranean
- 1929 - 1930 Lived and worked in Bretagne, France
- 1930 Returned to Picardy, France
- 1933 Institutionalized for several months
- 1935 Returned to Paris and resumed his painting career
- 1945 “Around the Mouslin”, (solo exhibition), Paris
- 1957 Retrospective exhibition, Paris
- 1962 Died, Paris, FranceParisParis is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...