Mid-Century French School, Harbor Oil Painting, Concarneau, 1955, Framed and Signed

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A 1955 view of the harbor at Concarneau, France, the fishing port on the southern coast of Brittany, painted in … Read more A 1955 view of the harbor at Concarneau, France, the fishing port on the southern coast of Brittany, painted in oil on canvas with a bold, mid-century modern hand. It measures 50.5 × 60.5 cm (19.9 × 23.8 in) unframed and 62 × 72 cm (24.4 × 28.3 in) framed.

Two fishing boats lie aground on the sand at low tide, one propped upright on a beaching leg, while fishermen stand along the shore. The paint goes on in broad, flat-edged planes, much of it laid with a palette knife. The water and sky break into a near-geometric patchwork of cream, aqua and blush.

Concarneau had drawn painters since the late nineteenth century. After the war, a new generation returned to Brittany’s tidal harbors with a flatter, more modernist approach, reducing boats and figures to blocks of color, and this canvas belongs to that moment. It is signed lower left in blue, though the signature is illegible, and inscribed “Concarneau” with the date “55” beneath. It comes in what appears to be its original frame. See less