HONFLEUR SOUVENIRS ET REVERIES

 

Henri de Saint-Délis

 Marie Isidore Henri Liénard de Saint-Délis

 (1878 Hesdin -1949 Honfleur)

 

Saint-Délis René Liénard de

 

 

 

 

" At the Secondary school of le Havre he was in the same class as Friesz, their friendship should last all their life... " " He met up Friesz to the Art College of the city, where they were pupils of Charles Lhullier, an alumnus of Ingres and having known Jongkind. There he knew also Dufy, Braque, Lecourt (1882-X) and Copieux (1885-1956) .../.

From 1906 till 1916 he stayed in Switzerland; most part of the works of this time were destroyed in le Havre during the bombardment of the city in 1944.

.../. A little bit before 1920, he left le Havre and settled down definitively in Honfleur, where he carries out the main part of his work... some portraits, some still lives, but especially landscapes, the old harbour and the multitude of watercolours. It is regrettable that Switzerland's production was almost completely destroyed .../. the colours is there lively and the drawing synthesized in wide arabesques. The production of Honfleur is alert and frank ; the drawing is there voluntarily hasty... " One could compare what he was for Honfleur in what Mathieu Verdilhan was for Marseille. To both, one finds the muffled echo of the fauvism... " - Jean Fisher: Catalog of the Retrospective Exhibition Henri de Saint-Délis in the Greniers à sel 1965. in E.B./G.

 

 

  

A the Eugène Boudin Museum preserves: self-portrait of H. de Saint-Délis circa 1910 (Ill). The beach and the lighthouse of the hospital (Ill). Honfleur, la jetée en bois (Ill).among 39 others works of H de Saint-Délis.

 

 

 

               Paris 1899 : Henri de Saint-Délis and George Charles Aid were enrolled together in the atelier of Jean-Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian.

 

 

 

 

Saint-Délis René Liénard de (1876-1958) French school. Painter..

Brother of Henri de Saint-Délis, he lived to Étretat.

The museums of Rouen keeps of him

Honfleur's port 1905 oil on canvas 65 x 81cm

Musée des Beaux-arts : Esplanade Marcel-Duchamp. 76000 Rouen.

 

Henri de Saint Délis and the art-dealer Jacques Hamon

 

- In the name of the son -

" Apart from the Honfleur people who liked to watch him paint (unaware that his friend Will was sketching him), who had heard of Henri de Saint-Délis ? It is true that he only agreed to exhibit his work three or four times, including a Paris exhibition in 1946 in the Jacques Blot art gallery where he may well have met Jacques Hamon. It was not until 1950 that M. Saladin, at the time curator of the Le Havre Painting Museum (Saint-Delis was so fond of Saladin that he produced a bust of him the better to get to know him) organized the first retrospective exhibition of his works.

From then on, Jacques Hamon took the affairs of the « neglected » artist in hand. And with what enthusiasm! An enthusiasm born of passion and a keen eye that he inherited from Armand Drouant - whom he thought of as his spiritual father - and Emmanuel David.

Jacques ceaselessly spoke out in favour of his painter. He gathered many friends who loyally backed him in his battle to proclaim the truth : Gabriel Reuillard who praised Saint-Delis' skilful, rigorously executed arabesques; Jean Caillens who spread the good word from show to show; Bernard Esdras-Gosse who, under the title « A great painter who remains unrecognised because he is different to recognition », enthusiastically produced the first detailed study of Saint-Délis; Noel Lecrecq, struck by the poetry of his painting; and finally, René Vauclin, to mention only those friends who have now left us for that comer of Parnassus reserved for painters, art-dealers and art-critics. Naturally, mention should also be made of those who, in Honfleur, believed in Saint-Delis : Piaggi, Fischer, Father Bouyssou, the Braquehaye family But it was always Jacques who was the driving force at the heart of this fraternal band.

I myself can testify to the fact that when he spoke of He Saint-Delis his words communicated themselves in such a way that it was hard to tell whether we shared his thoughts of whether he was thinking aloud for us. The evening before an exhibition, in 1982, I sat down to write about the three periods that Jacques had talked of : Havre, Switzerland and Honfleur. The words were flowing naturally and I wrote, in a sort of trance : « Curiously, one wonders whether it was not in mountains, at the foot of those great waves that over the ice faces ( ... ) that he was to discover the rhythm of waves breaking on a trawler's bow, the shimmering trees, and the form-torn clouds ( ... ) Who knows, perhaps Henri de Saint-Délis pictured his beloved estuary from the height of these mountain peaks. »

The words were doubtless inspired by Jacques. Today, it is still in his company, in the name of the son, that the reader can discover the first book devoted to Saint-Delis. It has the power of an irrefutable  testament. "  Daniel Fleury in Jean-Pierre Hamon, expert du peintre, HENRI DE SAINT-DELIS. GIROUETTE-créations; Paris. Galerie Jacques Hamon, Le Havre. (France) November 1990

 

Expositions - rétrospective

1950 : Musée des Beaux-Arts du Havre ; à l'initiative de Monsieur Saladin, Conservateur du Musée.

1953 : Honfleur; Salon des Artistes honfleurais.

1954 : Galerie André Weil (Paris) ; du 2 au 31 juillet, sous la présidence de Madame René Coty.

1955 : Galerie de Seine (Londres) ; du 7 au 30 juin.*

1956 : Galerie Braquehaye (Honfleur) mars-avril.

1961 : Galerie André Maurice (Paris) du 20 janvier au 11 février.*

1962 : Galerie Edwin Bloomfield (Londres).*

1963 : Galerie Jacques Hamon (Le Havre).

Galerie Armand Drouant (Paris) ; du 10 au 28 janvier.*

1965 : Salon des Artistes honfleurais ; du 25 juillet au 30 août.

1969 : Galerie Jacques Hamon; octobre.

1973 : Galerie Jacques Hamon ; du 4- août au 7 septembre.

1974 : Galerie Jouvene (Marseille).* 1982: Galerie Jacques Hamon ; du 13 mars au 9 avril.

1983 : Galerie Denise Valtat (Paris)*; avril-mai.

1985: Galerie Rollin (Rouen)*

1986: Galerie Jacques Hamon; du 5 décembre au 5 janvier.

1989 : Galerie Letailleur (Paris) ; du 20 avril au 27 mai.*

* : en collaboration avec la Galerie Jacques Hamon :http://galerie.hamon.free.fr 

 

Galerie Jacques Hamon - Jean-Pierre Hamon, expertise de tableaux:

44, place de l'hôtel de ville, 76600 le Havre France + 33 2.35.42.42.30

 

George-Charles Aid (1872-1938) American school. Portrait painter, etcher.

" This artist studied at the art college, at Saint Louis and at Paris, with Jean-Paul Laurens and Benjamin Constant .../. his etchings are very appreciated for their qualities of firmness of technique and their feeling. He became a member of the Association of the American artists in Paris ... '' E.B./G

" He was born in America and studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at St. Louis, Missouri. He went to Paris in 1899 and studied at Julian Academy and with Charles Cottet and Lucien Simon. Henri de Saint-Délis and George Charles Aid were enrolled together in the atelier of Jean-Paul Laurens at the Académie Julian at Paris in 1899. He was an expatriate artist in Europe until 1915, until returning to the USA and settling in the artists’ colony at Tryon, in the mountains of North Carolina. " George C. Aid was better known in Europe than in America! He made his fame with the publication of his eau-forte La Meuse à Dordrecht - Troyes; musée des beaux-arts - in the juillet 1903 no. de la Gazette des Beaux-Arts. He was membre of la Société des peintres-graveurs français. He did beautiful etchings of many scenes in France, Spain, Holland, and Italy.

        Aid lived in Montparnasse, Paris from 1899 through about 1912. There he knew many well-known painters including Cottet, Simon, Dauchez, Frederick Frieseke, Richard Emil Miller the American Impressionist painter (his roommate for several years), John Marin, etc.

From 1912-1914 Aid lived at Bordighera on the Riviera, where Charles Garnier (Paris architect of the Opéra) lived earlier. Bordighera was an important international colony of writers and artists that is not well-written in the literature.  In America after World War I Aid lived at a vineyard in Tryon, where he made wine and grew table grapes. He was known there for portrait and landscape paintings. He also executed a grand history painting, in the manner of his teacher Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921), The Baptism of Virginia Dare for the Mint Museum of Art in Charlotte, North Carolina. According to  Michael McCue - Paris and Tryon: George C. Aid and His Artistic Circles in France and North Carolina. Condar (Ill) eau-forte Port d'Honfleur circa1905 - Aid foto

Richard Emil Miller (1875-1943) American Impressionist Painter, pupil of Beaux-Arts in Saint-Louis (Montana). Studied under Constant & Laurens in Paris; member of the American Colony of artists in Giverny, roommate of G.C. Aid in Montparnasse. Miller also painted in Brittany at Saint-Jean-du-Doigt (Plougasnou) Finistère during the years 1912 / 1914. Member of: the Salmagundi Club, Association Artistique Américaine de Paris and Groupe des Peintres Américains de Paris, Chevalier de la légion d'honneur in 1908.   > the Artist's Colony : Giverny : le bassin.

Franck-Will 1900-1951. Son and pupil of Franck M Boggs (1855-1926)