Pierre-Albert Marquet was born on 27 March 1875, in Bordeaux, France. In 1890, he moved to Paris to study at the École des Arts Decoratifs, where he met Henri Matisse. In 1895, he started studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, under Gustave Moreau. Marquet would remain there until 1898, and met Charles Camoin, Henri Manguin, and Georges Rouault. During this period, Marquet increasingly painted landscapes and nudes with the vibrant colours and bold brushwork associated with Fauvism, as well as employing the dark outlines of cloisonnism. Marquet exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants from 1901, and featured in the infamous Salon d’Automne of 1905, when his paintings were amongst those deemed ‘fauve’.
Marquet had solo exhibitions with Berthe Weill and at the Galerie Druet during the 1900s, as well as exhibitions in Russia and Ukraine. The Seine was a favoured subject, depicted at different times of day, as well as female nudes – he would paint a series of naturalistic nudes in the early 1910s. From 1907, Marquet alternated between working in his studio in Paris and travelling around Europe and North Africa, particularly Algeria and Tunisia. He would meet his wife, Marcelle Martinet, on his first stay in Algiers in 1920. They married in 1923. He largely painted his preferred subjects – seascapes, river views, and landscapes. Unlike his close friend Matisse, Marquet’s style never changed radically after his Fauvist period; his work became increasingly naturalistic with a subtle, though nevertheless intense, tonality evocative of the play of light. Marquet died in La Frette-sur-Seine on 14 June 1947.
Marquet’s work can be found in the following selected international collections: the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Art Institute of Chicago; National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMoMA); the State Hermitage, St. Petersburg; Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Bordeaux; the Tate Collection, London.
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