View of the Seine, Épinay-sur-Seine , around 1911

Oil on canvas

Signed lower right

Dimensions: 40.5 x 60 cm

With frame: 56   x 76 cm

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. 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. Encouraged by Picasso, Braque and Juan Gris who lived 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.

He painted in Épinay-sur-Seine, Marseille, Montauban and Lyon in a rigorous style, then depicted, from 1916, landscapes of Céret. 

Our painting is a work of youth: its subject reflects the rhythm of life of the painter's first years of creation. In 1910, he lived in the family house in Epinay-sur-Seine. He paints the banks of the Seine, its changing landscape and its fantastic colors.