Exposition André Dauchez (1870-1948), du fleuve à l'océan

The exhibition “Du fleuve à l'océan” traces the career of André Dauchez, a landscape painter of renown in France, particularly in Brittany. His work reveals his attachment to Finistère and to Paris. This master of painting was an artist of many facets: engraver, illustrator, photographer and sailor. He carved out his own path in an era marked by turbulent modernity, finding tranquillity in his creations.

Nicknamed the painter of estuaries and wind, André Dauchez was a landscape painter of renown in France, particularly in Brittany. A man of many talents, he was also an engraver, illustrator, photographer and sailor… Between Paris and Finistère, which he loved so dearly, painting was his haven of peace. He carved out his own path to a state of joyful tranquillity at the heart of an era entering a turbulent modernity.

From Paris to Brittany. Born into a family of lawyers and notaries, André Dauchez trained in Paris, first under the engraver Gaston Rodriguez from 1886, then in the studio of the painter Luc-Olivier Merson. In 1890, his sister Jeanne (herself an artist) married the painter Lucien Simon. An artistic partnership sprang up between the two brothers-in-law. André Dauchez discovered Brittany in 1891 during a family holiday. In 1894 his father bought the Ker Gaït estate in Bénodet. This handsome, spacious house at the mouth of the Odet became a family summer retreat. Dauchez had his first sailing experiences with his father. Sailing, regattas, fishing and the still-wild landscape fed the eye and temperament of the young Parisian. This encounter with Finistère and its coastline left a deep mark on him.

In Paris, André Dauchez's flat-studio was at 14 rue Saint-Guillaume, in the 7th arrondissement. Following a conventional path, he exhibited at the Salon of the Société nationale des Beaux-arts in 1894, later becoming a member and then its president. In 1898 he married Marie-Thérèse Le Liepvre at the church of Notre-Dame-des-Champs in Montparnasse. They would have eight children. In 1900, André Dauchez was one of the founding members of the Société nouvelle de peintres et de sculpteurs. He then regularly showed his canvases at the famous Galerie Georges Petit. In the Paris of the Belle Époque, the artistic ferment was palpable.