René Sautin (1881-1968) - Les saules

René SAUTIN (1881-1968)

The Willows

Ink and watercolor on paper
Artwork dimensions: 26.5 x 42 cm
Unsigned
Provenance: Private collection, Les Andelys

Watercolor in perfect condition
Unframed

This painting will be listed in the artist's catalogue raisonné currently being prepared by Robert and Thierry Tuffier.

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René Sautin (1881-1968) was born in Montfort-sur-Risle in 1881.
He entered the Beaux-Arts of Rouen in the painting studio of the painter P. Zacharie, then in Paris in the Ferrier studio where he received the guidance of Albert Lebourg, native of the same village. He then joined the Independents with Signac and Luce.
He married in 1910, with Marthe, settled in Andelys in 1911, and befriended the sons Pissarro, Signac, Luce, Derain, Guillaumin, Lebasque, Bigot, Gernez, who gathered at Andelys to paint on the banks of the Seine.
Imbued with his Norman homeland, René Sautin would essentially be a landscape painter. By the 1920s, he abandoned the Impressionist approach for a calm and reasoned Fauvism.
The painter, having found balance in his means of expression starting in 1925, would reach his fullness in the 1950s. He is one of the few Norman painters to describe his landscapes in such a personal way through their power, a certain controlled violence, a strong sensibility.
A proud, distinguished, highly cultured man, he was much troubled by not being understood in his time and he regretted this isolation: “My life has often been hard and difficult…”
René Sautin was born in the same village as the famous painter Albert Lebourg, in Montfort-sur-Risle. But it is at Andelys that he would spend the majority of his life.
After primary and secondary studies in Montfort-sur-Risle and Pont-Audemer, René Sautin immediately pursued drawing: “After my studies, with a classical foundation, I entered the École des Beaux-Arts de Rouen in the studio of the painter Philippe Zacharie, a distinguished master for whom drawing was a precious metal. Then I went to Paris where I spent a year in the Ferrier studio… and I began painting with a few good mates and by listening to the advice of the painter Albert Lebourg.”
René Sautin left the capital in 1911 to settle in Andelys with his wife.
The early phase of his work is very influenced by Albert Lebourg, but very quickly his temperament drew him toward a Fauve painting with calm and reasoned colors. He himself said of his painting: “To paint, in essence, is to spread clay and not to rub. From there I paint thickly in impasto, without rubbing, each stroke being definitive. I never revisit a tone once the stroke is laid. This gives great power to my painting and a lot of character. What the devil! nature is affirmed. What makes a tone beautiful is its bold and rich color. The whole art of painting lies in doing or interpreting as one feels and sees; the rest is snobbism. Painting is exteriorizing one’s temperament. It is an interpretation of one’s thought that one passes on to others.”
The period of World War II profoundly unsettled the artist, for unquestionably René Sautin was a true lover of the Andelys. He never ceased painting the Seine, the quays of Petit-Andely, and the Château Gaillard. He painted very often in the same places, but each time it was a new work he created.

And yet, on June 8, 1940, the Germans bombed the town of Andelys. A city destroyed to ninety percent is thus revealed. The churches were spared as well as a few houses, but the entire town center had disappeared under the strafing of explosive and incendiary bombs.
During this period, the artists lost the taste for painting. Nevertheless, in the days following the bombardments, René Sautin made a series of watercolors, as if he wished to preserve a testimony, for future generations, of the city’s apocalyptic vision.

From then on, his work changed. His drawing became more marked, outlined in black.
On the Seine, barges carried the tricolor flag. In the 1950s, René Sautin continued this tendency to emphasize his drawing. Unfortunately, he gradually lost his sight. The artist compensated for his loss of vision with increasingly vivid and violent colors. He stopped painting definitively in 1964, four years before his death.

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