Paris, canal view - Dated 1928.

Technique Mixte. Drawing, watercolor, gouache.

Dimensions of the work: 17.5 x 11.5 cm, with the frame 37.5 x 32.5 cm

This urban and industrial design is fine and neat.

It is probably the Saint Martin canal.

We can see several moored boats and a crane in the foreground overlooking the Parisian buildings.

The artist colored part of his drawing revealing a piece of blue sky, two brown doors and a two-tone building facade thus bringing a poetic touch to his work.

After his secondary studies in Monaco, his naval officer father encouraged him in his desire to be a painter.

He moved to Paris in 1925, became a pupil of Roger de La Fresnaye and exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne where he exhibited cubist paintings and portraits.

The following year, he moved to Ostend where he was inspired by both his contemporaries Ensor, Permeke, Labisse while immersing himself   in old Flemish and Dutch painting, Van Eyck, Hans Holbein, Dürer, Brueghel discovered by visiting the museums of Bruges and Ghent.

His paintings become at the same time surrealist, classical and expressionist

Often diverting mythological themes in his paintings and borrowing from the imagery of the advertising of his time for humorous purposes, he is nicknamed the Angel of bad taste by his detractors. But his provocations lead him to notoriety

In 1930, he moved to Paris and in 1936 received the Paul Guillaume Prize (shared with Tal-Coat) for Saint Sébastien

He obtained an order in 1937, Le Toucher for the pavilion of the Sèvres manufacture at the International Exhibition in Paris. In 1938, Albert Sarraut, Minister of National Education offered him the wall decoration for the dining room of the French Embassy in Ottawa, Canada.

In 1946, he participated in the Surrealist exhibition in Lille with Magritte

He   exhibited at the Salon de Mai

Recognized as the precursor of a generation of young painters at the exhibition "Twelve Years of Contemporary Art" at the National Gallery of the Grand Palais in 1972

He takes part in the exhibition "Daily Mythologies" at the Museum of Modern Art of the city of Paris from as well as that "The Realisms between revolution and reaction 1919-1939" at the Center Georges-Pompidou.

He was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1991.

Alfred Courmes, "the unclassifiable" has put his solid culture and classical technique at the service of an art imbued with a stripping humor and great poetry.

He followed his path without ever giving in to ease. The value of this endearing and unique artist is recognized today in art circles.