Master Art

Like his paintings, Auguste Lepère’s drawings are characterized by a freshness of execution and an abiding love of nature. A late work by the artist, this large study in watercolour and gouache was drawn in 1908, probably in the département of the Vendée in western France. Poplars appear occasionally in Lepère’s late graphic oeuvre, notably in two well-known etchings; Rideau de peupliers (Vendée) of 1911 and La ferme aux peupliers de Hollande of 1914. Two paintings, Avenue de Peupliers, fin de Novembre (Vendée) and Les Grands Peupliers, temps gris, fin Novembre (Vendée) were exhibited in Paris in 1914.

As another contemporary critic, writing not long after the artist’s death, noted of Lepère, ‘He loved the beautiful masses of trees, the beauty of their structure and the shadows which they shed and disperse and with which they are wrapped. He interpreted their charm in the sketches he brought back from the forest of Fontainebleau…’