Albert Marquet was a Fauve painter born in the Bordeaux region of France. He attended the School of Decorative Arts in Paris and studied under Gustave Moreau at the early age of 15. Marquet also studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and became friends with fellow painter Henri Matisse while they were both students. The two worked side-by-side decorating the halls of the Grand Palace for the Paris Exposition in 1900, and remained lifelong friends.

Unlike fellow Fauve painter Matisse, Marquet’s style of painting was more of an answer to anti-Impressionism. Marquet eventually broke away from Fauvism and created a style of his own, most likely because he did not value bright and intense color in the same way that his fellow Fauve painters did. While other painters were using pure, saturated color, Marquet was experimenting with gray scales and hues used by the Impressionists in some of his paintings.

Once an established painter, Marquet painted what he liked, and not necessarily what society or artistic tastes of the day deemed fashionable. He was an introverted painter and kept to himself. During his early years as a Fauve painter, he created portraits, nudes, still life and more. He first exhibited with the Fauves in 1905 at the Salon d’Automne. Marquet was also a seasoned traveler and made trips to Russia, Holland and North Africa. He was truly a bohemian painter, and lived in a number of places around the world and only truly settled in Paris two years before his death.

After a 1912 visit to Morocco with Matisse, primarily painted landscapes. Marquet would also change his materials in 1925 and abandoned almost all other mediums besides watercolor. During his travels, Marquet would frequent a number of places such as Venice, Tunisia, Naples and Algeria. Due to the fact that he traveled so much, a number of his paintings are of ports and exotic landscapes.

From 1910 to 1914, Marquet briefly broke away from painting landscapes, and focused on nudes and interior brothel scenes. However, he eventually returned to landscapes, and continued to paint in the same style, fairly consistently, for the rest of his life, typically signing his work “Marquet” in cursive script on the front of his canvases.

Today, Marquet’s work is housed in public and private collections worldwide, and perhaps in your own home. Still wondering about a unique Fauvist landscape or figure study hanging in your home? Contact us… it could be by Albert Marquet.