Galerie Paul Prouté

Born in Culan, in the Cher region of France, Maurice Estève began to paint as a self-taught artist in his teenage years. If it was the surrounding nature that first inspired him, it was the old masters that guided him – Estève paid particular attention to Uccello, Piero della Francesca, Fouquet and Poussin at the Louvre. However, it was above all the discovery of Cézanne that was to influence the whole painter’s youthful production. Still attentive in the 1930s to the development of Cubism, and in particular to the work of Fernand Léger, Estève was later to abandon the strict imitation of reality. Resolutely turned towards abstraction, the painter was to meet with unwavering success, crowned by numerous exhibitions and the creation of a museum dedicated to his art in Bourges.