CHARLES CAMOIN 1879-1965

Considered as the most impressionist of the fauves, Charles Camoin's work manifests itself in a synthesis of the impressionist movement, in the wake of Renoir and Cézanne whom he met in 1901, and fauvism. In 1895, Charles Camoin studied drawing at the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseille before joining Gustave Moreau's studio, where he met Henri Matisse, Albert Marquet and Henri Manguin. They exhibited together, in the small gallery of Berthe Weill, rue Victor Massé in Paris, but also at exhibitions including the Salon d'Automne in 1905 which launched the fauvist movement. Its Mediterranean landscapes then highlighted a luminosity specific to fauvism while maintaining a certain cohesion of the image. It is in his portraits that the fauve aesthetic became more important.
In 1908, Charles Camoin had his first solo exhibition at Daniel Henri Kahnweiler's gallery in Paris and later enjoyed an international fame; his paintings were shown in avant-garde European exhibitions in Moscow, Prague, Brussels and New York.