"Frédéric Samuel CORDEY (1854 – 1911) - Portrait of a man, dated 1895"
Oil on canvas signed and dated, lower right
Dimensions: 41 x 33 cm- with frame: 62 x 54 cm
For this painting, the artist leaves the landscape to paint a portrait of a man. If he changes his pictorial genre, he does not abandon his touch by which he made himself famous. Landscape painter of the free school of landscape of the nineteenth century, he makes the color vibrate by the juxtaposition of hatched touches. Here, his style serves his subject. He represents a man with a lively expression.
His eyes, drawn in a line, are framed by his square jaw, his elongated nose and his clear forehead. The painter adorns his subject with simple clothes: the idea is not to detail the fabric, but to dress it in a shade of purple and plum. Once again, Frédéric Samuel Cordey asserts himself as a holder of color and drawing.
Frédéric Samuel Cordey evolves with the Impressionists, he presents four paintings with the group for the fourth impressionist exhibition in 1877.
Student of Isodor Pils and Gustave Boulanger at the School of Fine Arts in Paris, he is part of the group (Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, Sisley) who rebels against academic teaching to follow the path of Impressionism.
The artist participates in the Autumn Salon from 1903. He exhibits only rarely and art critics are complimentary about him. A retrospective exhibition took place at the Choiseul Gallery in Paris in 1913. His fortune allows him to work according to his own aspirations without depending on criticism and the help of merchants.
Appreciated by Gustave Caillebotte and particularly linked to Auguste Renoir, he is featured in several paintings by the artist, including the "Ball of the mill of the galette".An attentive landscape painter, he likes to depict the surrounding nature, If the countryside in the Alps is one of the painter's favorite places, he stays not far from Camille Pissarro in Neuville-sur-Oise as well as in Eragny-sur-Oise.
Bibliography :
. Article by Adolphe Thalasso, "F.-S. Cordey Exhibition", in L'art et lesartistes, monthly review of ancient and modern art, Oct. 1913-3 Feb. 1914, p. 237
. André Roussard, Dictionary of painters in Montmartre in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries
. Cat. of exp. Christophe Duvivier, The painters and the Oise, the painters-engravers of the Oise Valley, [exhibition "The painters and the Oise, the painters-engravers of the Oise Valley", Pontoise, Tavet-Delacour Museum, from Feb 26. as of Sept.23. 2007], Pontoise ed. of the museum, 2007
. Sophie Monneret, Impressionism and its era, Paris, Robert Laffont, 1987
Museum:
. Madame Cordey making tapestry, 1879, Paris, Orsay Museum.
. Dish of peaches, 1906, Nevers, prefecture of Nièvre