Jean Puy

A French artist, graphic artist, illustrator and ceramist.

He was born into the family of the owners of a factory. Studied at an Art School in Lyon, where he attended drawing and painting lessons of Tony Tolle.

Jean Puy was an active supporter of Fauvism and took part in the Autumn Salon of 1905, where this movement headed by Matisse, first manifested itself. He was a well-known and recognized master, admired by the poets Apollinaire, Carco and Klingsor, and critics Alexander, Kokyo and Moryes always devoted the artist enthusiastic articles. Jean Puy took part in exhibitions around the world, illustrated popular publications and signed a long-term contract with well-known art dealer A. Vollard to buy his works.

Key ideas:

– Working with artists such as Henri Matisse and Andre Derain, Jean Puy deliberately refused to depict the existing reality objectively. Instead, he focused on the emotional interpretation of the world, which he did with the help of a bright and rich color palette.

– For the artist it did not matter how much the depicted object or person resembled the original, he sought to show their inner essence, energy and soul. The artist’s brother Michel Puy, a famous art critic, recalled in his memoirs about Jean: “He never stops within the object or model, but penetrates into their inner life and emotions…”

– Jean Puy is known as one of the participants in the circle of Fauvists, a movement that revolutionized painting in the early twentieth century with its violent colors and a departure from reality. Although the paintings of Puy are not as radical as those of some of his fellow Fauvists, they express the general aesthetics of this movement, being inspired by Paul Gauguin’s works and the simplicity of the folk art of various countries. In them, you can feel the consonance of bright, clean colors, which have primordial power and cause a rush of emotions in the viewer.

– Despite the seeming simplicity, the paintings attract with astonishing harmony and an unconventional view of the world. “Colors!”, – the artist himself wrote once in one of the letters, – “Wonderful, exciting, exhilarating, delightful colors! It seems that we will never stop admiring them and will not be able to stop looking at them!”