After receiving his first drawing lessons from Carolus-Duran, he entered the Écoles académiques de Dessin et d’Architecture in Lille in 1878, leaving the same year. The young painter arrived in Paris between 1878 and 1881, when he began signing his work « Cross », an anglicised diminutive of his surname. Although Cross’s early works in Paris were reminiscent of those of his master Carolus-Duran, his participation in the Salon des Indépendants from 1884 onwards, and his adherence to the neo-Impressionist doctrine in 1891, greatly contributed to the development of his style.
Cross discovered the south of France in 1883 and settled there permanently in October 1891. Remaining close to Parisian artistic life through his attendance at the Salon des Indépendants and his repeated participation in Neo-Impressionist events, the artist remained deeply attached to Mediterranean landscapes, which he painted until his premature death in 1910.
Cross had been using watercolour since 1895, but it wasn’t until 1903, the year of his trip to Venice, that he really explored this technique, notably in his sketchbooks painted on the spot or on loose sheets found in his studio1. Our drawing, whose composition is structured by the tortuous maritime pines characteristic of Cross’s work, was produced around 1905.
A notice of inclusion in the catalogue of watercolours by Henri Edmond Cross being prepared by Mr Patrick Offenstadt accompanies this drawing.