Biographie

1879–1949

Born in Le Havre in 1879, in a fam­i­ly of ship­builders and sea cap­tains, Friesz was taught at the local ‘École Munic­i­pale des Beaux-Arts’ by the clas­si­cal painter Charles Lhuil­li­er. Here Friesz met Georges Braque and Raoul Dufy, who became a close friend. Hav­ing obtained a schol­ar­ship, Friesz enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1897. Like many of his friends, Friesz pre­ferred to learn freely from the mas­ter­works hang­ing in the Lou­vre muse­um. In 1905 Friesz exhib­it­ed at the ‘Salon d’Automne’. His works were not exhib­it­ed at the infa­mous Room VII which became known as the ‘Cage aux fauves’ but did show the flat appli­ca­tion of colour com­bined with a ner­vous han­dling of the draw­ing, two hall­marks of the new rev­o­lu­tion­ary style, known as Fauvism.

Friesz’ Fauve expres­sion resem­bled that of Hen­ri Matisse and André Derain, but also dis­played an exu­ber­ant draw­ing style as can be wit­nessed in the 1905 paint­ing enti­tled ‘La Cio­tat’. The sum­mer of 1906 Friesz spent with Georges Braque, trav­el­ling to Antwerp before vis­it­ing l’Estaque and La Cio­tat in the South of France, where the two friends worked on the same sub­jects. Where­as Braque moved towards Cubism, Friesz adhered to the Nat­u­ral­ism of Paul Cézanne, which he ren­dered in intense colours of high­ly con­trast­ing hues, applied with vig­or­ous Fauve brush­work. His com­po­si­tions showed solid­i­ty of vol­ume and a dis­tinct sep­a­ra­tion of planes. Thus, Friesz became rep­re­sen­ta­tive of a style known as ‘néo-cézan­nisme’.

Friesz’ trav­els through Ger­many, Bel­gium, Italy, Por­tu­gal and the South of France were reflect­ed in his choice of sub­ject matter.
In 1912, Friesz opened a teach­ing stu­dio in Paris. In 1913, he exhib­it­ed at the New York Armory Show, before being mobilised in 1914. Being wound­ed in 1915, Friesz was assigned a posi­tion in the Aero­nau­tics ser­vice in Paris. Fol­low­ing the Great War, Friesz lived between Paris and his native Nor­mandy. His paint­ing became increas­ing­ly nat­u­ral­is­tic and sensual.

Dur­ing the inter-bel­lum, Friesz con­tin­ued to explore his clas­si­cal style to express his beloved sub­jects of the land­scape, the female nude, still-life, por­traits and flo­ral arrange­ments. Friesz was also active in the dec­o­ra­tive arts of illus­tra­tion, ceram­ics, tapes­try car­toons and wall paint­ing. Friesz passed away in Paris in 1949.