Émile René Ménard 1862-1930. French School Early 20th.Century Female Nude Oil Study. "L' Automne." Signed lower right. Executed on Paul Fonet artists board set onto a stretcher. Original frame. Inscribed in pencil to reverse 11 May 1912, with further purchase and framing information "achete 1915-1,800 f. Le cadre 50f." 31 by 44 cms. Provenance: Private collection UK.
From an artistic background Ménard was immersed in an artistic environment from an early age, Corot, Millet and the Barbizon painters often frequented his family home. He studied at the Académie Julian from 1880, a student of Baudry, Bouguereau and Lehmann. He had a highly sucessful artistic career. Participating in the Salon of the Secession in Munich, and the Salon de la Libre Esthétique in Brussels. Several solo exhibitions were also devoted to him at the Georges Small Gallery. In 1904, he was appointed professor at the Academie de la Grande Chaumière.
Ménard's art is characterised by a clear classicism which merges with a diffuse and somewhat dreamlike and impressionistic brushwork.
In 1894, Victor Soulier in L'Art et la Vie described Ménard's work as "visions of a pacified, bathed nature, of dawn and of twilight, where the soul seems to immerse itself in the innocence of daybreak, and breathe the divine anointment that comes with the light."
The subject of Automne is one of Ménard's favourites the figure here first appears on the right hand side of his lithograph of Ca.1897.