Nature morte au bouquet d’anémones

Literature

Jacques Martin-Ferrières was the son of the great Post-Impressionist painter Henri Martin (1860-1943). Martin-Ferrières was prized for his highly personal portraits and landscape views. He studied with his father and with the French academic painter Frederic Cormon (1845-1924).

Like his father, Martin-Ferrières became a master at reproducing the shimmering and dazzling effects of light on canvas. Despite Henri Martin’s strong influence though, his son developed a technique uniquely his own by applying paint in swift and short brushstrokes of opaque color, at times overlapping and at times separated, revealing a pale ground layer and producing a mosaic-like surface.

As is the case with the beautiful example of our still life, Martin-Ferrières used the brushstrokes to generate energy and movement by applying various patterns of paint dabs, especially in the vase and fruits on the table. The chair depicted in our composition is actually one of a pair presently kept at the artist’s Country home in Razac de Saussignac. The Johnnie Walker Red Label bottle was often depicted in Martin-Ferrieres’s paintings.

Martin-Ferrières was awarded many national prizes, including an honorable mention at the Salon of 1920, a silver medal in 1923, the National Prize in 1925, and a Gold Medal and Legay-Lebrun Prize in 1928. A retrospective of his work in 1965 confirmed his respected status in the Post-Impressionist world.