Jean-Yves Commère (1920-1986) - Voiliers en bord de mer

Jean-Yves Commère (1920-1986) - Sailboats by the Sea

Original lithograph on vellin paper measuring 67 x 50 cm. The work is numbered and signed in pencil.

Magnificent seascape, by one of the most important and talented painters of his generation.

Work in good condition, never framed

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The numbering may differ from the photos.

Biography: Jean Commère, born in Paris on April 5, 1920, and died in Saint-Mathurin-sur-Loire (Maine-et-Loire) on October 22, 1986, is a French painter, watercolorist, draftsman, printmaker, and illustrator.

In 1936, Jean Commère was admitted to the École des beaux-arts d'Angers, then two years later entered the École des beaux-arts de Paris, in the studio of sculptor Jean Boucher. From 1936, he participated in numerous group exhibitions in France and abroad.

On November 11, 1940, he was imprisoned for demonstrating for the arrest of Paul Langevin. Released in 1941, he joined his family in Anjou where he was under house arrest.

He spent a stay in Brittany during 1947-1948 (he settled there for four years in Denée, Maine-et-Loire, where he painted port scenes and Breton women. In 1951, his first solo exhibition took place in Paris at the Monique de Groote gallery. He obtained, jointly with Michel Rodde, the Grand Prix Othon-Friesz for his painting Floods at Denée in 1952. Referring to Bernard Buffet’s miserabilism and the young painters of his time, Bernard Dorival placed Jean Commère, “with Gabriel Dauchot, Roger Lersy, Maurice Verdier and Raymond Guerrier, among the most notable champions of this expressionism.” His colleague Michel Ciry recalls that he is an plein air painter: “it is on the motif that this admirable draftsman creates his trembling evocations where air, water, and land are suggested with a highly efficient economy of means that is the prerogative of masters.”

Jean Commère created the stage curtain, the scenery, and the costumes for Bartók’s Concerto to the Stars at the Paris Opera in 1955. He painted portraits of Yves Montand and Simone Signoret for The Witches of Salem in 1956. In 1957, his painting Le vel d'hiv was acquired by the city of Paris.

Commère was named Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres in 1958 and participated the same year in the Venice Biennale. He would be promoted to officer of the same order in 1979.

He stayed on the Chausey Islands where he painted seascapes from 1959 to 19804. In 1971, Philippe Reichenbach Gallery offered him a first retrospective in New York. He won numerous prizes (critics’ prize, Salon des peintres témoins prize, Deauville Biennale prize, Francis Smith prize…).

He returned to his native Anjou region in the early 1980s. In 1983, he carried out a mural painting 9.50 m long on the theme of the circus for the Angers Convention Center. In 1984, the city of Angers presented Pope John Paul II with a Descent from the Cross by Commère.

Married in 1947 to Suzanne (nicknamed “Suzette”) Barbier, he bought in 1954 a house in Brie at Le Plessis-Feu-Aussoux (Seine-et-Marne). He painted landscapes, still lifes, family scenes, a series of Madonnas there. Suzanne, mayor of Le Plessis-Feu-Aussoux from 1965 to 1971, died in Le Plessis in July 1986. Jean Commère took his own life in October of the same year.