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MAXIMILIEN LUCE
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From Engraver to Painter
After following the drawing classes at the Arts Décoratifs as a teenager, Maximilien Luce, joined the Ecole de Vaugirard where he discovered and studied the works of artist, such as Edouard Manet, or Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot. Completing his studies at the Academie Suisse, Maximilien Luce started his artistic career as a wood-engraver and lithographer, providing illustrations for various magazines, such as L'Illustration, or Le Graphic.
Meanwhile, the artist infatuated with the surrounding Parisian life, discovered landscape paintings. His early works depicted the XIII et XIV districts, and illustrated the working life, the early days of the industrialization.
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Etchings
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Printer in his workshop, c.1895
Etching printed in brown ink on wove paper
© Detroit Institute of Fine Arts.
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Maximilien Luce,
L’Incendiaire, 1896.
Lithographie, 56,7 x 47 cm.
Private Collection © ADAGP, Paris, 2010
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Maximilien Luce
Dans le Jardin à Friant, 1881Rue Friant was one of the first homes of the painter and is located in Montrouge near Paris.
Sold by the gallery
Archives Stoppenbach & Delestre
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POINTILLISM
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Pointillism
In 1882, Georges Seurat developed a technique that revolved towards a new approach to colours. Influenced by the scientific theories of O-N Rood in New York, the artist would strictly use a divisionist technique consisting of applying colours in small coloured dots.
In 1884, the Société of the Artiste Indépendants was founded and their first collective exhibition was organized in the Pavillion of Paris, on the Avenue Champs Elysées. The founder of the Société was the artist Paul Signac.
In 1887, Luce joined the Société des Indépendants and would exhibit six works at the annual exhibition.
His participation in the exhibition would lead to his meeting with Camille Pissarro with whom he shared social ideas, and the artist would introduce Luce to the Neo-Impressionist painters Georges Seurat, Paul Signac, and Henri-Edmond Cross. They had a profound impact on Luce's artistic practice in the early 1890s.
Luce experimented with the divided touch from 1887 to 1897 which had a profound impact on his works and painted under Signac's influence some of his well-known compositions like La Seine à Herblay and a series of paintings depicting Paris scenes.
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Maximilien Luce
La Seine aux Grésillons, 1894 Oil on canvas
38 x 46 cm
14 15/16 X 18 1/8 inches -
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The painter of the social life
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Maximilien Luce by Paul Signac
© Minneapolis Institute of Fine Arts
The evolution towards a singular technique
From 1896 onwards, Luce slowly moved away from a pure divisionist approach and returned to a more traditional, impressionist approach. Luce's frequent encounters with Camille Pissarro, during his stays in Eragny doubtless played their part in his development. The painters became friends, shared political ideas, and both contributed through drawings or etchings to libertarian newspapers.
Luce also became an artist of cities and ports; his colourful palette emphasized the dramatic impact of these scenes. Capturing the attitudes of the workers, their physiognomy, Luce lent humanity to the fishermen, the factory workers, against what he considered the difficulties of the industrialized and mechanized work. -
Maximilien Luce
Camaret, pêcheurs sur le quai, 1893-1895 Oil on board
26 x 40 cm
10 1/4 x 15 3/4 inchesSold -
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Figures
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Throughout his career, Portraiture became an essential aspect of Luce’s practice. His ability and his sensibility to render details, and in handling compositions was evident in works such as the portrait of the art critic Félix Fénéon, and the paintings of his friends and family.
Luce, a humanist painter, was highly estimated by his peers who appreciated his uprightness, and genuine character. -
Maximilien Luce
Moulineux, jeune femme ôtant sa sandale, 1904 Oil on canvas
55 x 46 cm
21 5/8 x 18 inches -
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Les Hommes du jour
Maximilien Luce
Drawing by A.Delannoy
March 1909
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Illustration for Coins de Paris
Maximilien Luce
1941
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About the Artist
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Further Reading
Maximilien Luce
Tabarant
1928
Maximilien Luce: Néo-Impressioniste: Rétrospective
by Marina Ferretti
2014
Maximilien Luce: The Human Condition
2000
Maximilien Luce, Giverny
The Burlington Magazine
by Stephen Brown
Maximilien Luce à Orsay
Christian Chevandier
Sciences-Po Paris
