Yvonne Canu tableaux a vendre / painting for sale - Preparations aux Regates
Yvonne Canu tableaux a vendre / painting for sale - Preparations aux Regates
Yvonne Canu
(1921 – French - 2008)

‘Preparations aux Regates’

Oil on canvas: 36 x 42,5 cm

Signed lower right

Notes

Yvonne Canu was a 20th-century French Post-Impressionist who became a devotee of Pointillism more than a half-century after its originator’s death. So entranced by her first up-close experience with Georges Seurat’s work, she found her purpose as an artist as a student of his revolutionary style. Canu’s pointillist creations are distinctly modern, rendered with painstakingly precise dots of pure color that brilliantly blend together to form a cohesive work of art. Although her paintings indeed display the influence of Seurat in both their technique and choice of subject, her style is nevertheless distinctive. Colorful and avant-garde, her works are a testament to the utter freedom of creativity the artist enjoyed.

Seeing Seurat’s masterpiece was a formative moment for Canu. She was associated with an interesting trend of French artists in the 20th century who first found inspiration in, and then sought to expand upon, the theories of the Divisionist artists of the late 19th century who were fascinated by the optics and physics of light. She came to fully embrace this avant-garde, scientific approach to color theory, using shortened strokes and pure color to create a visual effect not on the canvas but in the viewer’s eye. Confident and fearless in her painting technique, she utilized high-impact color in complementary combinations and bold, block-like brushstrokes to capture the atmosphere of her chosen settings, which, like Seurat, typically centered around the water. Port scenes in the South of France were the artist’s specialty — perfect for the vibrant, distinctly modern canvases she championed.

Born in Morocco in 1921, Yvonne Canu traveled to Paris in order to study at the reputable École des Arts Decoratifs. Following the First World War, she entered the circle of the French-Japanese painter Tsuguharu Foujita and the Impressionist Élisée Maclet, both of whom had a profound influence on the development of her style. Canu’s work mainly consisted of landscape paintings featuring coastal and harbor scenes. She not only experimented with the impressionist style, but also Cubism early in her career when she studied alongside Ossip Zadkine at the Academie de la Grand Chaumiere. However, it would be the great Georges Seurat who had the most significant impact on her artistic aesthetic. She The French painter exhibited extensively in the second half of the 20th century, remaining devoted to Pointillism until her death in 2008.

Yvonne Canu’s paintings continue to captivate and inspire modern art enthusiasts. Her dedication to color and technique has left a lasting mark on Post-Impressionism. M.S. Rau proudly offers a curated selection of her original works. For more information, please contact us today.

Provenance

  • private collection, UK
  • Private collection, The Netherlands

Exhibited

  • New York, Wally Findlay Gallery, 1983

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