Code: 7011
Dimensions:
A beautiful 1930's French impressionist oil on board portrait of a young lady wearing a yellow blouse, by Jeane Besnard-Fortin. Charming figurative work by an interesting female artist whose studio in Montparnasse became a meeting place for artists.
The work is in very nice original condition, signed and dated 1936 lower left and presented in a modern gold painted frame.
Artist: Jean Bernard-Fortin (French, 1892-1978)
Title: Portrait of a Young Lady
Medium: Oil on board
Size: 14 x 12 inches (35.5 x 30.5 cm) including the frame
Jeanne Besnard-Fortin was a French figurative painter associated with the artistic milieu of Montparnasse and, later, with artists working around Pontlevoy and Alba-la-Romaine. Born Jeanne Bathilde Marie Besnard on 3 December 1892 in Dolus-le-Sec, Indre-et-Loire, she moved to Paris as a child and studied in Tours and Paris.
While working at the French Ministry of Labour, she maintained a studio in Montparnasse and became part of its cosmopolitan artistic community. She was acquainted with artists including Rudolf Bereny, Ginés Parra, Óscar Domínguez, Julio González, Clovis Trouille, and Emmanuel Mané-Katz. Her own studio became a meeting place for artists from different countries.
Besnard-Fortin painted landscapes, portraits, nudes, still lifes, and intimate interior scenes, exhibiting in Parisian salons from 1927, including the Salon des Indépendants. After the Second World War, she increasingly divided her life between artistic work and the regions of her native Indre-et-Loire. She also produced an extraordinary, extensively illustrated two-volume study of the history of French women's hairstyling, completed in 1947.
She died in Amboise on 11 December 1978, shortly after her 86th birthday, and was buried in Montrichard. Today, her work is particularly associated with the Montparnasse school and French figurative painting of the interwar period.
