Galerie Paul Prouté

A complex, independent and provocative personality, Marcel-Lenoir was a self-taught artist. He went to Paris in 1889, the year of the Universal Exhibition, where he discovered his vocation: painting. Starting out as an illuminator, a field in which he enjoyed some success, Marcel-Lenoir began painting his canvases later. Initially influenced by the Symbolist movement of the time, he distanced himself from it during a salutary retreat to the countryside – at the turn of the 1900s – during which he returned to painting from nature. Stripped of the symbols and hidden messages that sometimes made it hermetic, Marcel-Lenoir’s painting became more authentic and less anecdotal.
A talented draughtsman, his admirers included such important figures as Auguste Rodin, Joseph Bernard and Antoine Bourdelle. No doubt this particular affection of sculptors for his graphic work can be explained by the artist’s particular attention to the treatment of volumes and the balance of his creations, which brings him closer to the practice of sculpture. This approach is particularly evident in the treatment of his many female nudes, which he gives such power that they are reminiscent of ancient models.