His place of birth familiarized him with the landscape and the vision of Cezanne. His desire to paint led him to Paris where for a long period of time he lived in very difficult circumstances. He made friends with Tal-Coat and Francis Gruber. He remained for approximately seven months in the Biskra region in south Algeria and in 1935 took a long trip to Vienna, Warsaw and Moscow. After the war he returned for a period to his birthplace and worked in Brittany. In 1969 he visited Mexico.
He exhibited for the first time in Paris at the Salon d’Automn in 1932 and at the Salon des Independants the following year. Until the war he would exhibit very frequently with the group Forces Nouvellles, without, however, being a member. During that period he began to paint canvases of large dimensions. In 1937 he won the Paul-Guillaume Prize which assured him economic comfort, so that he could devote himself exclusively to painting. Many retrospectives have been devoted to him in Tokyo, Osaka, London, Venice, Sao Paolo and Mexico.
He was also involved with costume design, tapestry design and the illustration of books written by contemporary writers. During the period 1933 to 1937 he created a series of drawings that depicted figures whose gaze is lost in the void. Later, accompanied by Gruber, he distanced himself from the group and lived in seclusion in the forests of his birthplace. The result were paintings of small dimensions indicative of style which would influence the artists of his generation. During the war he would write that “the image which he has of the world is translated with especial violence, both in the form of things and in his chromatic vision”. He would realize this phrase of his in still lifes from this period where the objects are depicted flat and colored with exceptional intensity and would be given the name “Japanese”. The still lifes prepared the way for the large compositions of the People of Arles and the Bathers, works which would gather together all the characteristics of the previous years. To the same period belong a series of landscapes of small dimensions depicting his birthplace, with their characteristic tumultuous green color and the intense red sky which dominates the image.
From 1948 on he went into seclusion and lived in Burgundy and Provence. In his work there appeared an elliptical form of expression full of symbols which were related to hieroglyphics. This would be followed by a series of works inspired by the Atlantic coast-line. In 1960 his trip to Mexico enriched his work with new subject matter and an expanded chromatic gamut.
He commenced his studies at the age of fifteen at the Ecole des Artes Decoratifs where he met Matisse, and they remained friends to the end of his life, continuing their studies together at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in the Gustave Moreau studio. After his teacher’s death he left the Ecole des Beaux Arts and, again with Matisse, continued at a free academy. Together with Camoin they painted street scenes.
He held his first solo exhibition in 1907.
Though he exhibited at the Salon d’ Automne in 1905, in the Fauvist room, his color was never as intense or as luminous as the others. Nevertheless, the bonds of friendship that linked him with three of the most important artists of this style (Matisse, Dufy and Manguin) made him a courageous defender of the movement, which had provoked a strong reaction in the beginning. The traditional scope of his work is much more apparent than in the others and though his color is at times strong it is never arbitrary. Like Dufy he chose subjects that were characterized by their intense colors.
During the early years his color was placed lavishly on the canvas and the brushstroke was conspicuous, while later his works became smooth and finely executed.
The largest part of his work was exclusively involved with the French landscape. From 1920 on he made regular trips to Algeria in order to continue to paint outdoors. This date also marks the beginning of his long period of wanderlust, though he would return each year to Paris and Algeria for considerable lengths of time. He travelled to Tunisia, Norway, Egypt, Spain, Rumania, the Soviet Union, Morocco, Italy, Switzerland, the Netherlands, and Sweden.
He was inspired by all the countries he visited to paint landscapes that exuded feelings of measure and harmony. The particular light of each landscape and the coloring the landscape acquires because of it, can be clearly seen in each of his works.
He was also a friend of the writer Charles Louis Philippe.
Cecco del Caravaggio (Cecco is short for Francesco) worked in Italy during the first half of the 17th century. Mancini, in “Considerazioni sulla Pittura”, c. 1620, refers to a Francesco, called del Caravaggio, as an admirer and imitator of Caravaggio. It seems that the high regard Francesco had for the Lombardian painter, and his ability to imitate the master, gave him the pseudonym del Caravaggio.
He was born in Poland in 1919 and in 1938 settled in France in order to continue his studies to become a civil engineer. With the outbreak of war in 1939 he enlisted in the Foreign Legion and settled in Avignon. He worked as a mechanic in a garage and took Sunday sculpture lessons at the Ecole des Beaux Arts there. His involvement with painting began in 1943. He worked with the engraver Joseph Hecht. His first solo exhibition was held in 1949. He won many distinctions and in 1960 was invited to the Venice Biennale. He is known for his illustrations of literary and poetic publications. He has engraved approximately thirty medals for the Paris Mint. He is also involved with the decoration of public buildings and tapestry design.
At the age of twelve he was apprenticed to a wood carver and decorator and then took lessons in decorative sculpture at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. He studied the works of Diderot, Delacroix and Baudelaire. He was also involved with Impressionist art and the work of Gauguin. He settled in Paris in 1907 and in 1922 taught at the academy that he himself founded, published many articles, and also issued books concerning with the theory and act of painting. From 1918 to 1940 he wrote the art column for the Nouvelle Revue Francaise.
He participated in the Salon des Independants starting in 1906 but the first presentation of his works was at the Salon d’ Automne in 1907. Most of these were landscapes with sinewy, vigorous brushstrokes and exceptionally luminous colors, as he was strongly influenced by Fauvism and the work of Cezanne.
He had his first solo exhibition in 1910.
He managed to secure a scholarship fro non-academic painters to the Villa Medicis Libre in Orgeville. There he met Raoul Dufy. In the spring of 1911 his works were exhibited at the Salon des Independants in the renowned room 41, along with those of Archipenko, Gaky, Duchame, Duchamp-Villon, Gleizes, La Fauconier, Metzinger, Picabia, and Jacques that of Delaunay, Jacques Villon and La Fresnaye.
He also participated in the exhibition of the group section d’ or in 1912.
In 1943 he presented all of his work in the city for the first time, and in 1958 his first retrospective exhibition was held at the Musee d’ art Moderne de la ville du Paris.
He also illustrated books, and did large decorative compositions for public buldings in Bordeaux.
The critic Jean Cassou maintained that his writings on painting constitute one of the monuments of French thought. He has been characterized as “the academic of Cubism”.