Émile Othon Friesz

(French, 1879-1949)

Born in Le Havre in 1879 into a family of shipbuilders, Émile Othon Friesz was encouraged at a young age to become a painter by his parents. By 1892 he had begun his art education at the École des Beaux-Arts in his hometown of Le Havre, where he studied with his close friend Raoul Dufy. The two friends moved to Paris together in 1897 when Friesz was granted a scholarship to the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. While in Paris, Friesz studied with Léon Bonnat until he met Henri Matisse and was influenced by the Fauvist style.

Friesz made his artistic debut in 1900 at the Société des Artistes Français. He exhibited at the first Salon d'Automne in 1904 and again in 1906 at the Salon des Indépendants. In 1907 he exhibited with other Fauvist painters, but the following year he returned to the more traditional principles of painting that he had learned early in his training in Le Havre. He opened his own studio in 1912 and taught painting until he joined the military in 1914 for the duration of World War I. Friesz returned to Paris in 1919 where he remained for the next 30 years.

Influences of his travels can be seen in his later paintings. These naturalistic landscapes share key features such as rich, natural colors, balanced composition, and energized brushwork. Cézanne’s Post-Impressionist influence can also be noted in the geometric composition and energetic brushwork of his later works. Friesz spent the last thirty years of his life painting in this more traditional manner, until his death in 1949.

His paintings are in collections at museums around the world, including the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia; The National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design in Oslo, Norway; and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. His work continues to do well at auction, with a recent sale at Christie's finishing at over USD $106,000.