Biographie

1860–1943

Born in Toulouse in 1860, Hen­ri Mar­tin attend­ed the local École des Beaux Arts dur­ing 1877–1879. Hav­ing secured a grant, Mar­tin depart­ed for Paris where he became the pupil of the aca­d­e­m­ic painter and sculp­tor Jean-Paul Lau­rens. Martin’s paint­ings were in keep­ing with the reign­ing aca­d­e­m­ic style and made him a suc­cess­ful and respect­ed painter.
How­ev­er, dur­ing the late 1880s, Mar­tin became more attuned to Neo-Impres­sion­ism and demon­strat­ed his under­stand­ing of the Divi­sion­ism tech­nique in his 1889 paint­ing enti­tled ‘Belle jeune fille marchant à tra­vers les champs une fleur à la main’ (Beau­ti­ful Young Lady Walk­ing through the Mead­ows, a Flower in Hand). Dur­ing the 1890s Mar­tin knew grow­ing suc­cess due to numer­ous pub­lic com­mis­sions which he exe­cut­ed in an unde­ter­mined style, blend­ing aca­d­e­m­ic and Neo-Impres­sion­ist meth­ods. His pro­duc­tion com­prised con­trast­ing sub­ject mat­ters rang­ing from the offi­cial Aca­d­e­m­ic to Symbolism.

In 1900, Mar­tin bought ‘Mar­quay­rol’, an impos­ing 17th Cen­tu­ry res­i­dence in Labastide-du-Vert locat­ed in the enchant­i­ng Lot val­ley in South West France. From here he con­tin­ued his ‘offi­cial’ pro­duc­tion as seen in his famous ‘Les Faucheurs’ (The Reapers), a com­mis­sion for Toulouse Town Hall. Simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, being present in his native area gave rise to a more per­son­al pro­duc­tion, reveal­ing his tal­ents as a land­scape painter using the tech­niques of Impres­sion­ism and Neo-Impres­sion­ism. In his own words Mar­tin explained his aim as ‘to trans­late full light by using Pointil­lism and the decom­po­si­tion of the tones’, there­by adher­ing to the known sci­en­tif­ic chro­mat­ic theories.

His self-por­trait dat­ing 1912, cur­rent­ly in the col­lec­tion of the Musée d’Orsay demon­strates Martin’s artis­tic matu­ri­ty. Dur­ing the same year Mar­tin acquired a house in the pic­turesque vil­lage of Saint-Cirq-Lapopie in the Lot val­ley, and in 1923, he acquired a home in the port of Col­lioure at the foot of the Pyre­nees on the French-Span­ish bor­der. Here he spent his sum­mers paint­ing the extra­or­di­nary light, which had also seduced Paul Signac, Max­im­i­lien Luce, and the Fauve painters Hen­ri Matisse and André Derain. In 1933, Mar­tin retired at his beloved ‘Mar­quay­rol’ where he paint­ed every sin­gle detail of the house and its gar­dens, before pass­ing away in 1943.
By some con­sid­ered as a rene­gade of Acad­emism, Mar­tin was dis­liked by Paul Signac for blend­ing the Divi­sion­ism tech­nique with Impres­sion­ism. How­ev­er, Martin’s friends Édouard Vuil­lard et Mau­rice Denis, ral­lied to his cause. Mar­tin left an impres­sive body of work, large­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the col­lec­tions of the Bor­deaux Fine Arts Muse­um and the ‘Musée Hen­ri-Mar­tin’ in Cahors.