Contact gallery for price		Albert André French school, born 1940 Vase of Flowers Oil on canvas 18 x 21 1/2 in. (45.5 x 54.5 cm.) Signed lower right: Albert André Provenance: Durand-Ruel, Paris Private collection Albert André, a renowned Post-Impressionist, was born in Lyon on May 24, 1869. He received his first art training in Lyon and worked designing patterns for silk fabrics, the city's main industry. In 1889 Andre traveled to Paris and joined the Académie Julian where he studied under William Bouguereau. There he met fellow artists Louis Valtat, Maurice Denis, and Pierre Bonnard and became a member of the Post-Impressionist movement. He exhibited for the first time in 1894 at the Salon des Independants where Auguste Renoir saw his work and befriended him. Renoir introduced André to the influential dealer Paul Durand-Ruel who was successful in selling André's work primarily abroad to American collectors. From this positive debut, André continued to participate in the avant-garde exhibits, most especially the Salon d'Automne from 1904 to 1944. Like many painters of his generation who followed the Impressionists, André was not influenced by a single technique, but by a combination of many. As well as being a talented and successful painter, Albert André was a respected writer and museum curator. André's monograph, "Renoir" (1919) is one of the most accurate contemporary accounts of the artist's work. After the First World War he returned to Laudun in the Gard Provençal where his family owned vineyards and took charge of the Museum of Bagnols-sur-Ceze from 1917-1954. There the artist assembled an impressive collection of Impressionist and Post-Impressionist work by his friends including Bonnard, Renoir, Monet, Signac, and Vollard. The museum was renamed the Albert André Museum. Our painting Vase de Fleurs shows the mature development of André's Post-Impressionist style. Like the fellow artists of the movement, he favored color, brushstroke and movement rather than a rigorous likeness of a subject. This still life of flowers in a vase emphasizes the energy and warmth of a typical provincial flower arrangement. Warm red and many bright yellow flowers are accented with just a touch of purple and blue sprigs. The colorful red-orange fabric at right, perhaps a nod to the decorative silk industry of André's home, further balances the painting. The rounded vase itself is painted with casual strokes but precise enough to indicate the light reflecting on the ceramic glaze and the earthen texture of the clay. With the painting André has made a delightful study of contrasting colors and surfaces. Museum Collections Include: Musée national d'Art Moderne, Paris; Musée d'Orsay, Paris; Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; The Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; The Art Institute of Chicago, IL