French Surrealist Trompe L'oeil Apples OIl Painting

Dimensions: H: 15.5, W: 17.5 IN

size uncludes frame. Lucien Mathelin, born in 1905 in Binche, A province of Hainaut, in Wallonia, Belgium, and died in 1981 in Paris. French painter. His work was influenced by surrealism andtinged with irony.

Lucien Mathelin was born in a family of artists and has benefited from

artistic training since childhood. He made his first oil on canvas at the age of 15 in 1920. In 1924, he exhibited at the Salon d'Automne which he became a member. He did not study plastic arts, but traveled to Morocco (1925-1926) and Greece (1933-1934), where he enriched his palette. In 1937, Mathelin worked for a while for Raoul Dufy to realize the gigantic painting of La Fée Electricité . Although this painter was never formally part of the group of surrealist artists, his daughter, Marie, described his work as "trompe-l'oeil surrealism". Indeed, many of his paintings, made according to the technique of trompe l'oeil , refer to this pictorial movement. One of his main paintings, L'Atelier de Galanis, painted in 1946, was given by his son, Jean Mathelin, to the museum of Montmartre in Paris. The painting represents the interior of the workshop of the engraver Galanis. It shows an accumulation of heterogeneous objects (armchair, table, telescope or navy, sundial, terrestrial harmonium, empty frames ...) and the engraving press that belonged to Edgar Degas. These paintings of Lucien Mathelin created a scandal during an exhibition of the ARC at the Museum of Modern Art of the city of Paris in 1971. The Arc de Triomphe is represented in the form of a cook, and the French flag as a towel drying. In Les Invalides , the dome is replaced by a skull. The columns of La Bourse become columns of coins and tremble under the weight of gold. In The Beggar before the Elysee , the Palace grinds gruyère all eyes, while a beggar stays away. Mathelin is censored and supported by the exhibitors. The museum will close for four days. At the Paris Biennale of the same year, Mathelin was a critical success. With this series of paintings, Mathelin enjoys diverting certain classics of painting from their representations and their senses. He does not hesitate to attack the Mona Lisa who offers us her enigmatic smile, to the Venus of Botticelli by showing it to us in the shower, to Lubin Baugin's Still Life with Wafers by painting a mouse on the plate, to mix Goya and Piero di Cosimo on the same canvas.

Goat, hen, donkey, horse ... Lucien Mathelin used to paint animals by assembling agricultural objects, craftsmen and everyday objects of which he was a fervent amateur. A wall in his studio at Villa des Arts was covered. He also made portraits. Unusual assemblies on canvas, poetic, tinged with humor as it should be at Mathelin.

Public collections

Paris , National Museum of Modern Art :

Paris, museum of Montmartre : Atelier Galanis , 1946, oil on canvas Dallas (United States) Gothenburg (Sweden)

Solo exhibitions

1925. Gallery of the Star, Paris 1933. Athens, Greece. André Gallery, Paris. 1946. Galerie Bailly, Lille. 1949. Vachon Gallery, Saint-Tropez 1957-1960-1961. Galerie Weil, Paris. Galerie de la Proue, Rennes 1965. Gallery ML André, Paris 1965. Galerie Hébert, Grenoble 1966. Mirage Gallery, Aix-en-Provence 1966. Netzel Gallery. Worpswede (Germany) 1966. Galeria Marco Polo, Madrid 1967. Kuntsalon Fisher Bielefeld (Germany) 1968 to 1970. Recio Gallery, Paris 1968. Galleria of Arte il Punto Catania (Italy) 1968. Shapes and Graphics, Saint-Paul-de-Vence 1971. Isys Brachot Gallery, Brussels 1972. The Brod Gallery, London 1974. Tokyo. Osaka (Japan) 1975. "Monumensonges", Gallery of the Passerelle, Paris 1975. Gallery of the Eye, Saint-Rémy-de-Provence 1978. Novotel, Lyon 1978. The Estérel, Paris 1979. Christiane Vallée Gallery, Clermont-Ferrand 1980. Galeire Schemes, Lille. 1981. Kaganovitch Gallery, Paris Tribute to the 1985 Salon d'Automne Since 1981, the Galerie Pascal Gabert has represented the work of Lucien Mathelin.

Group Exhibitions

Salon Comparison Salon of the Young Painting Tuileries Salon Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris (ARC), 1971 Biennial of Paris, 1971 Imaging Salon Summer Salon, Deauville Autumn Salon (member) from 1978 to 1981 Salon des Independants (member) National Society of Fine Arts (member) Painters Witnesses of their Time, Paris, Musée Galliera, from 1978 to 1981