Thomsen: Olive Trees In Provence, 1926 large Cezannien Landscape

An elegant provencal landscape with its distinctive light, colours and olive trees, by René Charles Thomsen (1897-1976). The work dates from 1926, an important year for Thomsen, just 29 years old at the time. After a trip to Avignon in the South of France, it marked his first solo show in the French capital. Soon one man shows in important Parisian galleries such as the Galerie Marcel Bernheim (1929) and the Galerie Durand-Ruel were to follow.

René had studied with Louis Anquetin and Fernand Cormon at the Ecole

Nationale Suprieure des Beaux-Arts. He was the son of a sculptor close to the Docteur Gachet, van Gogh's champion and supporter. When mobilised in WW1, Ren Thomsen drew and painted solders and scenes from the front. In the late 1910s, he became friends with Jules Pascin and Modigliani. Along with his companion Chaim Soutine, he attended classes at the Academie Colarossi.

Thomsen obtained the prestigious the Velasquez Prize, and with it, a scholarship to work at the Casa de Velasquez in Madrid in 1931-32.

Works by René Thomsen are now in the collections of the Pompidou Centre, in the Louvre, the petit Palais, Versailles Castle, the Museums of Bagnols sur Cze, Le Havre, Rouen, Albi and Toulon.

Our oil on canvas, signed and dated at the lower right, measures 54 x 73 cm. The overall framed size in a wooden patinated frame from the 1940s is 69 x 88 cm.