The images and information presented below are for the instruction of students and scholarly research.
Ferdinand Desnos (1901-1958)
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Ferdinand Desnos was a self-taught artist, and is generally associated with the Surrealists. Born in Pontlevoy, Desnos grew up with his parents who owned a bakery. He began to seriously paint around 1926, using color as a main driving point in his sometimes erotic themes.
Castor et Pollux, 1947
Deer in the Woods
Before his move to Paris in 1930, Desnos worked in various jobs from being a mushroom farmer to an electrician and a jazz musician.
Portrait of Andre Breton, 1945
Because Desnos was a self-taught artist, his style is generally considered to be naïve art, and often mirrored that of other famous naïve artists.
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Typically with naïve art, landscape scenes, for example, are highly detailed, much in the same way that Renaissance art was, showing every line in leaves and grass in the far background. This was very typical of Desnos’ landscapes, though his talent for figure study and unique themes set him aside from other naïve artists.
Landscape
Today, Ferdinand Desnos is still little known outside the art world, though he worked and exhibited extensively during his lifetime. Contact us to help you authenticate a piece of work by this mysterious artist.
