Biographie

1879–1965

Born in Mar­seille in 1879, Charles Camoin entered the local École des Beaux-Arts in 1895 before enrolling at the École Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1898. Here, in the stu­dio of Sym­bol­ist painter Gus­tave More­au, Camoin befriend­ed Hen­ri Matisse et Albert Mar­quet, whose research­es he joined. Camoin also met Hen­ri Man­guin. This group of young painters went on to become the pro­tag­o­nists of Fauvism.

Dur­ing his mil­i­tary ser­vice in the South of France, dur­ing 1900–1903, Camoin vis­it­ed the elder­ly Paul Cézanne who left a last­ing impres­sion on him and his work. Upon his return to Paris in 1903, Camoin joined the group of artists asso­ci­at­ed with Matisse. As such, Camoin exhib­it­ed at the ‘Salon d’Automne’ and at the ‘Salon des Indépen­dants’. Being rep­re­sent­ed by the Berthe Weill gallery, com­mer­cial suc­cess came his way in 1904 with the sale of many works, notably to the French State and to Paul Signac. In 1905 Camoin’s works hung along­side those by Hen­ri Matisse, André Derain, Mau­rice de Vlam­inck, Albert Mar­quet and Hen­ri Man­guin in the infa­mous Room VII of the ‘Salon d’Automne’ of 1905, when the group was named ‘wild beasts’ or Fauves.
How­ev­er, unlike his Fauve friends, Camoin always kept a cohe­sion of the paint­ed image, avoid­ing the trans­pos­al of colours.
A reg­u­lar vis­i­tor to Provence and espe­cial­ly to Saint Tropez, Camoin lived in Paris where the influ­en­tial art deal­er Daniel-Hen­ry Kah­n­weil­er organ­ised his first one-man-show in 1908.

Camoin’s paint­ings were shown in avant-garde exhi­bi­tions through­out Europe and in the Unit­ed States. In 1912, Camoin signed a con­tract with the Eugène Druet gallery. Camoin remained loy­al to the Fauve treat­ment of colour, with­out ever aban­don­ing spe­cial atten­tion to detail and struc­ture of com­po­si­tion. Camoin spent the win­ter of 1912–1913 with his friend Matisse in Tang­iers, and the rest of the year in Mar­seille, Cas­sis and Mar­tigues. At the begin­ning of 1914, Druet host­ed a one-man show; not sat­is­fied with his work, Camoin destroyed many of his paint­ings. Mobilised dur­ing the Great War, Camoin returned to Paris in 1919, where he encoun­tered dif­fi­cul­ties in tak­ing up paint­ing again.
As of 1921, Camoin lived between Paris and Saint-Tropez, where he paint­ed the port, the bay and its sur­round­ings recur­rent­ly. He enter­tained an intense cor­re­spon­dence with Matisse and remained close to Mar­quet, who lived in Algiers at the time.
Often described as the ‘most Impres­sion­ist of the Fauves’ Camoin devel­oped a spon­ta­neous and sen­su­al style which remained loy­al to the descrip­tion of the sub­ject and its lumi­nous vari­a­tions. As such, Camoin adhered to the cre­do of Paul Cézanne of bind­ing togeth­er spon­tane­ity, colour and motif. Camoin died in his Mont­martre stu­dio in 1965.