Maurice Vlaminck (1876-1958), French
Watercolor, gouache and ink on paper (19 3/4" x 23 1/2")
Paysage avec Maison
Price on Request

Maurice Vlaminck (1876-1958)

Maurice de Vlaminck was born in Paris to a family of musicians. His father taught him to play the violin. He began painting in his late teens. In 1893, he studied with a painter named Henri Rigalon on the Ile de Chatou. In 1894 he married Suzanne Berly. The turning point in his life was a chance, when he was 23,  to meet on the train to Paris   an aspiring artist, André Derain, with whom he struck up a lifelong friendship. When Vlaminck completed his army service in 1900, the two rented a studio together for a year before Derain left to do his own military service. In 1902 and 1903 he wrote several mildly pornographic novels illustrated by Derain. He painted during the day and earned his livelihood by giving violin lessons and performing with musical bands at night.

In 1911, Vlaminck traveled to London and painted by the Thames. In 1913, he painted again with Derain in Marseille and Martigues. In World War I he was stationed in Paris, and began writing poetry. Eventually he settled in the northwestern suburbs of Paris. He married his second wife, Berthe Combes, with whom he had two daughters. From 1925 he traveled throughout France, but continued to paint primarily along the Seine, near Paris. He painted these landscapes, golden wheat fields and chilly, wind-swept winter scenes that earned him the title "poet of stormy skies".

Source: The World of Matisse by John Russell, Time-Life Library of Art, Time Magazine, May 24, 1968