Henri Montassier, Impressionist Nude, 1910, Oil on Panel, Framed

Oil on panel by Henri Montassier (French 1880-1946)

This elongated nude is one of Montassier’s most sensual works. On a neutral background in an alcove , which contrasts with the impression of softness that emerges from the shape and position of the cushions, Montassier placed a naked young woman, lying on a colored sheet, the body on the right side, the head placed on her cushion. The young woman seems asleep and peaceful her shoes at the edge of the bed.

Montassier painted the nude indoors in the manner of Goya or Manet.

This painting from 1910 won numerous awards at exhibitions around the world. The painting was exhibited in Paris, New York and Tokyo.

Henri Montassier, son of Marthe Fauche and Albert Montassier, notary at Courlon, was born on June 27, 1880

The young Henri attended the communal school of Pontoise then was admitted to the high school of Sens where he distinguished himself during his schooling by obtaining many taken drawings. At 18, in 1898, he passed his baccalaureate in series letters and philosophy. Despite his growing sensibility and artistic taste, his father enrolled him in the Faculty of Law in Paris. Albert still thinks, at that moment, that his son will succeed him at the head of the study with a license and a doctorate in his pocket.

But in 1900, 20-year-old Henri discovered the pleasures of the capital and felt more attracted to museums than to the Law School. Armed with a letter of recommendation from Eugène Petit, the mayor of Pont, he passed the entrance examination to the Banque de France in 1902, and joined forces with Luc Olivier Merson, a renowned artist who taught at the Beaux-Arts. Shortly afterwards, Henri was admitted to the master’s workshop. In 1906, he finally resigned from the bank. Without regret. If not to see his father’s hopes vanish forever. He will not be a notary in Pont-sur-Yonne.

During the Great War, he supported the fighters with artistic contributions. In 1917, Henri Montassier met Céline Rambach. It was love at first sight. They married in Paris in February 1918. Céline’s father believes a lot in the painting of her son-in-law and helps the young couple to settle down comfortably. What Céline and Henri do when they move into the 17th arrondissement of Paris, in an apartment with a beautiful studio.

Renowned painter and illustrator, he took part in numerous exhibitions: Salon des Artistes français (gold and silver medal), Salon d'Automne (vice-president), Salon des Indépendants… He exhibited in the provinces but also in London, Munich, Geneva, Brussels, the United States and Japan. Knight of the Legion of Honour in 1932, he obtained the Heiner Prize in 1937, rewarding a French artist, painter of figures; diploma of honour at the International Exhibition the same year. Between 1920 and 1940, Henri Montassier worked extensively. He painted large paintings, nudes, portraits, landscapes… His paintings are very often bought by the State during various exhibitions. He worked for L'Illustration (1927, 1929, 1935 in particular) and illustrated literary works, including a very fine edition of Beaumarchais' «Mariage de Figaro» (1928). During this period between the two wars, Henri Montassier travelled extensively, in France, but also in Italy, in Tunisia… He brings back from his travels many landscapes that can be found today through the auctions.
Henri Montassier The Impressionist:

Impressionist painters, who want to paint of the concrete and the living, choose their subjects in the landscapes or the daily scenes of contemporary life freely interpreted and recreated according to the vision and the personal sensitivity of each of them. For the first time, they will not take only sketches of the landscape and then complete their work in their workshop. Working on the spot and «on the motif», as often the painters of the school of Barbizon, as some English landscapers, as Eugène Boudin or Johan Barthold Jongkind, they push very far the study of the outdoors, make light and its games the essential and moving element of their painting, spreading the dark shades and the nuances elaborated to use pure colors that flickers a very divided touch. Painters of a changing nature, of a simple and quiet life grasped in the particularity and truth of the moment, they are indifferent to the search, dear to the classics, of the ideal of the beautiful and the eternal essence of things. Among the main representatives of the impressionist movement are Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro and Alfred Sisley accompanied by other artists whose respective personalities will evolve in a clearly distinct way: Auguste Renoir, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Berthe Morisot, Armand Guillaumin, Albert Lebourg, Édouard Manet, Henri Montassier, Mary Cassatt, Gustave Caillebotte.