MAXIME MAUFRA
Born at Nantes in 1861, the only regular art education Maxime Maufra received was from M. Le Roux, a local professor. His father, a man of business, decided that the son should follow the same vocation, much to the son’s disgust. After a few years of preliminary training Maufra was sent to Liverpool in order that he might acquire the language and further the commercial interests of his father’s house. Maufra studied English, more or less, and practised art, copying in the museums and private collections, and sketching in the neighbourhoods of New Brighton, Seacombe, and amongst the docks and shipping of the great port. Business was not neglected, but having effected a lucky “deal” which placed him in the possession of a little capital, he cut the cable which joined his life to commerce and sailed into the open sea of art. His family protested, his friends implored him not to take such a rash step. Maxime Maufra became a professional artist. For five years he toiled with his brush, working hard at every different method of technical expression, trying oils, water-colours, and the etching needle. Dealers did not come forward, buyers were never seen. At last, at the very end of his financial resources, he organised a tiny “one-man” show in Paris.
In the “Echo de Paris” M. Octave Mirbeau published a short criticism, which voiced the general opinion of Maufra’s talent. “Yesterday,” writes Mirbeau, “I entered the galleries of de Boutheville, where are exhibited about sixty works by Maufra. I was immediately conquered, for I found myself in the presence of an artist in full control of himself, who, after the necessary indecisions, the usual educational troubles, has realised that style is the most important thing—in fact, the joy of art.”
A few of the paintings were sold, enough to cover the expenses of the exhibition. A better luck awaited Maufra. M. Durand-Ruel casually glanced into the rooms before the close of the modest collection. He asked to see the artist. Maufra was in Brittany, and a telegram called him back to Paris. An interview followed in the Rue Lafitte between artist and dealer, and never since that day has Maufra known the anxieties of living on hope, for M. Durand-Ruel, with characteristic acumen, had arranged for his future.
In the spring of 1901, at the galleries of M. Durand-Ruel, Maxime Maufra organised his last and most successful exhibition, about fifty canvases executed in various mediums being shown. From the admirable preface written by M. Arsène Alexandre, one of the most perspicacious of French critics, the following lines may be quoted: “Maufra continues in the school of the Impressionists in this manner, that the point de départ in each of his pictures is in reality a quick and profound impression. He detaches himself from the school inasmuch as the realisation is a calculated and skilful art; and this is complete Impressionism.” A final quotation from the pen of M. Gabriel Mourey in “Le Grand Journal” aptly sums up the talent of this artist: “One could accuse Maufra at the time of his first exhibition at the de Boutheville galleries of submitting himself to the influence of Claude Monet. Already, however, he reveals his strong personality. Here he is to-day a free man and master of himself, capable of realising whatever his thoughts impel him to. He has his own conception of Nature, and he realises it with a liberty and independence which is veritably masterful. The diversity of his talent is proved in the most striking fashion. Scotland, Brittany, Normandy are evoked with an extraordinary facility, the different characteristics of these three countrysides, their special conditions, their peculiar atmosphere. They are like portraits in which a soul breathes, in which the blood runs beneath the skin, where the mystery of being is declared. The words of Flaubert’s St. Anthony come involuntarily to the lips before these pictures of Nature, sometimes savage, sometimes in a more tender mood: ‘There are some spots on earth so beautiful that one wishes to press Nature against one’s heart.’”
SHIPWRECK · MAXIME MAUFRA
