Maurice Asselin, Nude, 20th Century, Charcoal, Framed

Charcoal drawing signed lower left Maurice ASSELIN, born June 24, 1882 in Orleans and died September 27, 1947 in Neuilly-sur-Seine is a French painter and engraver attached to the School of Paris. Maurice Asselin is best known for his still lifes and nudes. "with Asselin, intimism has a narrower meaning than with Georges d'Espagnat. It is the poetry of the family environment in which he lives. Brought up in a quiet provincial atmosphere, Asselin was perhaps inclined by atavism and education to this expression of domestic charm. Of course, he painted landscapes and still lifes, but most frequently, what comes back in his work is the child, the woman doing domestic work, motherhood. The woman has in his work this slightly sad gravity which is very much in the French tradition and which makes one think of Le Nain whose women Asselin has the robustness. His nudes also have this accent of intimacy, of reserve, which is the particular note of the nude in French painting. As far as his technique is concerned, very sober in its effects, Asselin owes nothing to Fauvism, but much to Cézanne. Without finding in his painting all the processes of the master of Aix-en-Provence as in the painting of Simon-Lévy, one cannot help thinking that it is the spirit of Cézanne which animates his canvases whose passages of planes are so clearly delimited so as to put in perfect value the luminous volumes. - Germain Bazin