{{short description|French painter (1869–1952)}}
[[File:Renoir of Louis Valtat c1904.jpg|thumb|''Portrait of Louis Valtat'' circa 1904 (age 35) by fellow painter Auguste Renoir]]
'''Louis Valtat''' ({{IPA|fr|lwi valta}}; 8 August 1869 – 2 January 1952) was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Fauves ("the wild beasts", so named for their wild use of color), who first exhibited together in 1905 at the Salon d'Automne.<ref name="RC"> ''Les Fauves: a sourcebook'', by Russell T. Clement, p. 2, web: [https://books.google.com/books?id=VcaMyvjUZhIC&pg=PA2 Books-Google-hIC].</ref> He is noted as a key figure in the stylistic transition in painting from Monet to Matisse.<ref name="REHS"> "Louis Valtat (1869 - 1952): Color and Light", REHS, 2008, webpage: [http://www.rehs.com/louis_valtat_exhibition.html REHS-Valtat]. </ref><ref>[http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T087767 Grove Art Online]</ref>
==Life and work== Louis Valtat was born on 8 August 1869 in Dieppe,<ref name=REHS/> in the Normandy region of France, into a wealthy family of ship owners. Valtat spent many of his childhood years in Versailles, a suburb of Paris, where he attended secondary school at the Lycée Hoche (near the Palace of Versailles). Encouraged by his father, an amateur landscape painter himself,<ref name=REHS/> Valtat became interested in art. At age 17, deciding to pursue an artistic career, he applied to the ''École des Beaux-Arts de Paris''. He was accepted, and in 1887 Valtat moved to Paris to enroll at the ''Ecole'', where he studied with the well-known academic artists Gustave Boulanger (1824–1888), Jules Lefebvre (1836–1911), and later with Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845–1902).<ref name=REHS/>
[[File:Louis Valtat, 1913, Nu au fauteuil, oil on canvas, 81.4 x 65.4 cm.jpg|thumb|Louis Valtat, 1913, ''Nu au fauteuil'' (''Nu sur fond rose''), oil on canvas, 81.4 x 65.4 cm, private collection. Exhibited ''Exposició d'Art francès d'Avantguarda'', Galeries Dalmau, Barcelona, 1920<ref>[http://pandora.girona.cat/viewer.vm?id=2934347&view=dalmau&lang=en Exposición de Arte francés de Vanguardia, Galeries Dalmau, 1920 (catalogue no. 81)]</ref>]] Valtat subsequently studied at the Académie Julian (Julian Academy)<ref>[http://oxfordindex.oup.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803115128345?rskey=yNnOSo&result=1 Oxford Index]</ref><ref>(fr) [https://books.google.com/books?id=jbMjRUyQqUYC&dq=Acad%C3%A9mie+Julian&pg=PA20 Maïthé Vallès-Bled, Itzhak Goldberg, Musée Paul Valéry, ''Valtat, indépendant et précurseur'']</ref><ref name=REHS/> under Jules Dupré (1811–1889), a landscape painter of the Barbizon school. Among his fellow students were Albert André (1869–1954), who became a close friend, as well as Maurice Denis (1870–1943), Pierre Bonnard (1867–1947), and Édouard Vuillard (1868–1940). These last three, calling themselves "Nabis" (after the Hebrew word meaning prophets), were influenced by Paul Gauguin's (1848–1903) Synthetist method of painting based on the use of simple forms, pure colors, and large patterns. While Valtat remained detached from that movement, he learned from them.<ref name=REHS/>
In 1890, upon winning the Jauvin d’Attainville prize, Valtat established his own studio at rue La Glaciere in Paris. He made his debut in 1893 at the Salon of Independent Artists, displaying several paintings depicting street scenes of the neighborhood surrounding his art studio. One of those paintings, titled ''Sur Le Boulevard'' (On The Boulevard, 1893) was noted by the art critic Félix Fénéon. During this early period in his career, Valtat used the spontaneous light touches of Impressionism (although with bordered objects)<ref name=REHS/> and the colorful dots found in Pointillism. Two examples representing Valtat's work during this period include ''Péniches'' (Barges, 1892) and the ''Pommiers'' (The Apple Trees, 1894). As noted by Cogniat, ''Péniches'' has the impressionistic rendering of the mobile reflections of rippling water while ''Pommiers'' is "alive with the dazzling brilliance of sunlit reds and yellows intensified by the stippled strokes of green".<ref name=REHS/>
Valtat exhibited widely during his career. In 1894, he collaborated with both Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Albert André in creating the decor for the Paris theater "L'Œuvre" at the request of Lugné Poë.
Valtat suffered from tuberculosis, and he spent many autumn/winter seasons along the Mediterranean coast in Banyuls, Antheor and Saint-Tropez. Beginning in 1900, Valtat made several journeys by bicycle to visit Auguste Renoir at the Maison de la Poste in Cagnes. There, Valtat made several portrait drawings of Renoir on which he based a subsequent woodcut, and the two artists collaborated on a sculpture of Cézanne.<ref name="Ferrillo">Ferrillo, Lynn Boyer. "Valtat, Louis." ''Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online''. Oxford University Press, retrieved 30 November 2012.</ref> Another friend of Valtat was Paul Signac, whom he visited often, traveling in a small Bollée motorcar that he acquired ca. 1904 from Signac in exchange for his painting ''Women at the Seashore''.<ref>Signac, P., Bocquillon-Ferretti, M., Grand Palais (Paris, France), Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam., & Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.). (2001). ''Signac, 1863-1935''. New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 62–63. {{ISBN|0870999982}}.</ref> During his time spent near the Mediterranean, Valtat intensified his use of color and began to express his Fauvist tendencies, particularly in painting seascapes. Art historian Natalie Henderson Lee identifies Valtat as a "proto-Fauve",<ref name="Brettell153">Brettell, R. R., Tucker, P. H., Lee, N. H., & Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, N.Y.). (2009). ''The Robert Lehman Collection: III''. New York, N.Y: Metropolitan Museum of Art in association with Princeton University Press. p. 153. {{ISBN|1588393496}}.</ref> although he remained somewhat apart from the Fauve group, and never adopted their extreme boldness in the treatment of form and color.<ref name="Ferrillo" />
After 1914 he worked in Paris and in areas near Rouen and Versailles.<ref name="Ferrillo" /> The subjects of his paintings included flowers, landscapes, and scenes of contemporary life, and he produced many prints.<ref name="Ferrillo" /> Valtat continued to paint until 1948, when the glaucoma from which he had suffered for several years resulted in the loss of his sight.<ref name="Brettell153" /> He died on 2 January 1952 in Paris.
==Selected works== [[file:Bemberg Fondation Toulouse - Sur le Boulevard - Louis Valtat - 1893.jpg|thumb| ''Sur le Boulevard'' (1893) Fondation Bemberg Toulouse]] The following are some paintings by Louis Valtat:<ref name=REHS/> * ''Composition avec trois vases'' (Composition with Three Vases) * ''La Dentelliere'', c. 1906, oil on canvas * ''Les Rochers Rouges dans la Mer'' (Red Rocks by the Sea), circa 1903 * ''Péniches'' (Barges), 1892 * ''Pommiers'' (The Apple Trees), 1894 * ''Sur Le Boulevard'' (On The Boulevard), 1893 * ''Vase Tulipe et Violettes'' (Tulips and Violets), 1925 * ''Voilieres au Port à Ouistrehamm'' (Ouistrehamm), ca. 1930 * ''Stil life With Apples'', Norton Art Museum, West Palm Beach, Florida
==Notes== {{Reflist}}
==External links== {{Portal|Art}} *{{Commons category-inline}} * Valtat website: [http://www.valtat.com/ valtat.com] *[https://www.findlaygalleries.com/artists/period/louis-valtat/ Louis Valtat Bio] - Findlay Galleries * {{FrenchSculptureCensus}}
{{Fauvism}} {{navboxes |title=Related navigational templates |list= {{flatlist| * {{tl|Post-Impressionism}} * {{tl|Avant-garde}} * {{tl|Western art movements}} }}}} {{Authority control (arts)}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valtat, Louis}} Category:1869 births Category:1952 deaths Category:People from Dieppe, Seine-Maritime Category:Painters from Normandy Category:Fauvism Category:19th-century French painters Category:French male painters Category:20th-century French painters Category:20th-century French male artists Category:Lycée Hoche alumni Category:Académie Julian alumni Category:19th-century French male artists