Achille Othon Friesz (1879-1949), French
Oil on canvas (25.6" x 21.2")
Port D'Honfleur
Price on Request

Achille Othon-Friesz (1879-1949)

Born in Le Havre, France to a family of navigators, Achille Friesz studied first at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Le Havre where he met Raoul Dufy, then from 1899 to 1904 at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in Paris where he studied under Bonnat.  Although he studied the great painters like Veronese, Rubens, Chardin, Delacroix and Corot and made copies of their canvases at the Louvre, he admired the work of the modernists, such as Raoul Dufy, Henri Matisse, George Braque and the Fauves.

He began as an Impressionist and had his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie des Collectionneurs, Paris, in 1904. Then started to use stronger colours and participated 1905-7 in the Fauve movement; painted with Braque at Antwerp in 1906 and at La Ciotat in 1907. In 1907 he developed a less colourful, more strongly constructed style under the influence of Cézanne. His characteristic style, with looser, freer handling, dates from a visit to Portugal in 1911. He worked chiefly at Toulon and in Provence from 1918-30, and in his last years painted much at Honfleur and elsewhere on the Normandy coast. Friesz was an influential teacher, especially from 1929 at the Académie Scandinave.

He painted in the United States, and in 1925, won the prestigious Carnegie Prize. Friesz painted, taught art students and illustrated books, including an edition of Ronsard.  The artist's work is in major museums throughout the world.

Source: Washington County Museum of Fine Arts