Attributed to Marcel AVRIL (1887–1944) - Lot 283

Lot n° 283
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100 - 150 EUR
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Attributed to Marcel AVRIL (1887–1944) - Lot 283
Attributed to Marcel AVRIL (1887–1944) The Craftsman, 1934 Pastel and charcoal, titled within the image at the top center, dated on the frame glass at the bottom right, annotated in the lower margin: “We are ugly because we are great; we are great because we are free. We are the Artisan, the genius, and the life of the world” H. 62 cm - W. 47 cm (visible area) Provenance: Armand Avril Collection (1925–2026), Cotignac (Var) Marcel Avril (1887–1944) was the father of the artist Armand Avril (1926–2025). The collection of fifteen works we are presenting, drawn from the family archive, offers a wonderful opportunity to rediscover a major figure in the visual arts in Lyon during the 1930s and 1940s and beyond, the ambitious and extremely rare works of an artist deeply committed to the cause amid the turmoil of World War II. Marcel Avril, a collector of paintings and primitive art as early as the 1920s and 1930s, was a man of very strong political convictions in the spirit of the Popular Front, a defender of the workers’ cause, and a peace activist. His paintings bear witness to his commitments and offer a deeply tormented vision of a world with apocalyptic overtones. The profound strangeness of his painting—unparalleled in our eyes—manifests itself in a striking blend of Expressionism and Surrealism, imbued with a deeply personal, incantatory mysticism. In Lyon, he exhibited with the Témoignage group, under the auspices of Marcel Michaud, in 1940, 1941, and 1943. In January 1944, his political activism led to his arrest by the Gestapo, followed by his deportation to Germany, where he died in December of that same year. Since then, his work has been shown only once, at the exhibition “Groupe Témoignage 1936–1943” at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, exactly 50 years ago, in 1976.
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