View of Toulouse- Bateaux -Lavoirs - Dated 1912.

Oil on canvas signed, dated lower right, located and titled on the back.

Dimensions: 50 x 61 cm, with frame: 66.5 x 77.5 cm.

In this early work, the artist sets up his easel on the left bank of the Garonne in Toulouse, and gives us a view of wash-boats moored on the banks. In the distance we can see the bell tower of the Notre Dame de la Dalbade church, a real visual landmark, at the time the tallest bell tower in the city, today non-existent following its collapse in 1926.

The banks of the Garonne, an inseparable place of the city, are linked to pre-industrial craftsmanship but also designed as a leisure area where festivities take place. Many painters have represented the banks of the city with its washerwomen or its walkers. Here no characters, a sober and stripped down architectural view. The work is synthetic and pure, painted in large areas of material.

To represent "the pink city" a pretty palette is needed; deep burgundy to purples through more intense pinks and old pinks combine with the blue and gray white of the clouds of the turbulent sky.

Pierre Boulaine known as Pierre Brune paints landscapes, still lifes and some portraits. Born into a family of the merchant bourgeoisie, he was destined to resume his father's profession: traveling salesman and fabric merchant.

From the age of twenty, he traveled to the South of France, met the painters Lenoir and Lucien Andrieu. 

Self-taught artist, he exhibited his work for the first time in 1910, on the advice of the circle of painters surrounding him.

From 1913, he presented the Druet gallery, urban views, well-constructed still lifes, in refined shades in half-tone.

On the eve of the First World War, he took part in the creative emulation of the Art Vivant group. In 1916, he moved to Céret where he painted landscapes of Roussillon with a large invoice. Encouraged by Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris who were residents there between 1911 and 1913, he created a museum of modern art there and took up the post of curator. He receives donations from Matisse, Chagall, Maillol, Manolo, Masson and many others.