Connaught Brown

<body text="black" link="#636394" alink="#636394" vlink="#636394"marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" topmargin="0" leftmargin="0" bgcolor="#FFFFE5"> <h1>Connaught Brown - A leading fine art gallery specialising in paintings and drawings by artists from the French Impressionist, Post Impressionist and Modern Master periods.</h1> <ul> <li><a href="http://web11036.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/pages/about.shtml">About Connaught Brown</a> <li><a href="http://web11036.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/cgi/connaught_cgi/db.cgi?db=archive&uid=default&nh=1&sb1=2&so1=ascend&Gallery=Archive&sb2=5&so2=descend&sb3=4&so3=descend&view_records=View%2BRecords&Artist=*&Media=*&x=20&y=17">Browse through our collection</a> <li><a href="http://web11036.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/cgi/connaught_cgi/db.cgi?db=archive&uid=default&nh=1&sb1=2&sb2=5&sb3=4&so1=ascend&so2=descend&so3=descend&ww=on&Gallery=archive&Link_to_name=Luce_Maximilien&PB_category=&Category=&setcurr=pounds&view_records=Search">Maximilien Luce</a> <li><a href="http://web11036.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/cgi/connaught_cgi/db.cgi?db=archive&uid=default&nh=1&sb1=2&sb2=5&sb3=4&so1=ascend&so2=descend&so3=descend&ww=on&Gallery=archive&Link_to_name=Valtat_Louis&PB_category=&Category=&setcurr=pounds&view_records=Search">Louis Valtat</a> <li><a href="http://web11036.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/cgi/connaught_cgi/db.cgi?db=archive&uid=default&nh=1&sb1=2&sb2=5&sb3=4&so1=ascend&so2=descend&so3=descend&ww=on&Gallery=archive&Link_to_name=Holsoe_Carl&PB_category=&Category=&setcurr=pounds&view_records=Search">Carl Holsoe</a> <li><a href="http://web11036.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/cgi/connaught_cgi/db.cgi?db=archive&uid=default&nh=1&sb1=2&sb2=5&sb3=4&so1=ascend&so2=descend&so3=descend&ww=on&Gallery=archive&Link_to_name=Le_Sidaner_Henri&PB_category=&Category=&setcurr=pounds&view_records=Search">Henri Le Sidaner</a> <li><a href="http://web11036.vs.netbenefit.co.uk/cgi/connaught_cgi/db.cgi?db=archive&uid=default&nh=1&sb1=2&sb2=5&sb3=4&so1=ascend&so2=descend&so3=descend&ww=on&Gallery=archive&Link_to_name=*&PB_category=&Category=Post_Impressionism&setcurr=pounds&view_records=Search">Post Impressionists</a> <li><a href="http://www.lavishlocations.com/site/pages/search.html">Location Search</a> <li><a href="http://www.lavishlocations.com/site/pages/contact.html">Contact us</a> </ul> <a href="http://www.connaughtbrown.co.uk/index2.html">Connaught Brown</a> is located just off Piccadilly, in the heart of London's West End, where it has been operating since its foundation in 1985.<br> <br> <b>Connaught Brown</b> represents the artists Maximilien Luce, Louis Valtat, Carl Holsoe and Henri Le Sidaner.<br> <br> <H3><b>Maximilien Luce</b></H3> Parisian born artist Maximilien Luce occupied a distinguished position among the Neo-Impressionist circles of the late 1880s and 1890s. During his first exhibition with the Indépendents in 1887 Luce attracted the attention of Camille Pissarro, himself a recent convert to Neo-Impressionism. The shared interests of Luce and Pissarro can be seen in the series of paintings both artists made at the turn of the nineteenth century depicting the hustle and bustle of Parisian streets, bridges and quays. Adopting a freer, looser technique with broader brushstrokes and more restrained, naturalistic tonalities. Luce developed an idiom closer in spirit to Impressionism and this was reinforced through his later friendship with Claude Monet.<br> <br> <H3><b>Louis Valtat</b></H3> Louis Valtat belonged to the same generation as Vuillard, Rouault, Picasso, Braque and Leger. Arriving in Paris at an early age, having completed his classical education at Versailles, he spent time at the Académie Julien where he became acquainted with Bonnard, Vuillard and Andre who met in the Café Volpini and held aesthetic discussions. This group was later to constitute the Nabis. Louis Valtat pushed the exploration of symbolic use of colour. In this he can be seen to have anticipated the Fauve movement, with which he was associated. Bouquets of cut flowers displayed in vases became his favourite motif. These he felt permitted him the greatest liberty in composition and exploration of colour associations.<br> <br> <H3><b>Carl Holsoe</b></H3> Carl Holsoe's treatment of the interior is distinctly his own. Airy brushwork evokes the space of his rooms which are, typically, richly furnished with plants and pictures. His art pays homage to the magical beauty of the pure light of the long Scandinavian summer days and his compositions are carefully arranged to emphasise this. Holsoe won widespread recognition and success in his career: he was a regular exhibitor for over 30 years at Carlottenborg where he won 33 medals, including the prestigious Eckersberg Prize, and won exhibitions internationally in Paris, London, Sweden and Munich.<br> <br> <H3><b>Henri Le Sidaner</b></H3> Henri Le Sidaner studied at the École des Beaux-Arts. In the French capital he encountered art which was to shape his own: the painterly technique developed by the Impressionists, notably Monet, and the mysterious and compelling atmospheres favoured by the Symbolists. Le Sidaner's art built on these two strands, and its beauty was acknowledged in the numerous awards won by the artist, who was made President of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1937.<br> <br> <H3><b>The Post Impressionists</b></H3> Post Impressionist is the term used to describe and encompass the complex, varied and often overlapping trends in French painting in the period from circa 1880 to circa 1905. These trends emerged largely in response to or in reaction to the achievements of the <a href="art_m_imp.shtml">Impressionist</a> artists.<br> <br>The key artistic movements that are encompassed by the Post Impressionist period label include the <a href="art_m_neoimp.shtml">Neo-Impressionists</a> (also the Pointillistes and the Divisionists); the Synthetists (also the <a href="art_m_pont.shtml">Pont-Aven</a> School and Cloissonists); <a href="art_m_symb.shtml">Symbolism</a>; Neo-Traditionism; the <a href="art_m_nabis.shtml">Nabis</a>; the Salon de la Rose + Croix. The period culminates in the <a href="art_m_fauv.shtml">Fauve</a> artists. Post Impressionism is also used to encompass the Belgian developments of Luminism, Les Vingt and the Libre Esthetique.<br> <br>In their different ways, all these groups felt dissatisfaction with <a href="art_m_imp.shtml">Impressionist</a> art, particularly with its preoccupation with the sensation and the ephemeral moment; its apparent lack of coherent or rigorous methodology and its seemingly conservative bases in realist and naturalist art.<br> <br>In their different ways, the various Post Impressionist groups re-examined and sought to re-form the achievements of the French <a href="art_m_imp.shtml">Impressionist</a> artists: to codify its practices or base them in more permanent, scientific procedures or to invest the subject with a conceptual and/or emotional significance as well as to broaden arts social reach.<br> <br>New links were forged by Post Impressionist artists between the fine arts and the graphic and decorative arts of mass culture and communications, linking to the Arts and Crafts movements and the revolution in printing techniques at the end of the nineteenth century. <br> <br>The Post Impressionist artist groups were supported by their development of a network of alternative exhibiting possibilities. From 1883 the Groupe des Indépendents (subsequently the Société des (Artistes) Indépendents) provided an official alternative to the Salon system. From 1891 the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts proved a forum particularly for <a href="art_m_symb.shtml">Symbolist</a> artists; and 1903 the more overtly radical Salon dAutomne was founded, whose 1905 exhibition has become famous for publically launching the <a href="art_m_fauv.shtml">Fauves</a>.<br> <br>The term Post Impressionist itself was first coined only in 1910 when English critic Roger Fry named his exhibition at the Grafton Galleries, which presented French art of the previous three decades - featuring works by Cézanne, Van Gogh and Gauguin - Manet and the Post Impressionists. Frys selection prioritised artists who he felt exploited the formal facts of painting, particularly colour and line, in order to express emotion. Indeed, Fry had also toyed with the label Expressionist for his exhibition. <br> <br>The developments of the varied Post Impressionist artists can in the long term can be seen to have paved the way for the succession of radical avant-garde groups which dominated art in Paris from circa 1905 to the outbreak of war in 1914. Post Impressionist art can therefore be seen as heralding a paradigmatic shift from nineteenth century aesthetics towards modernist art.<br> <br>The first major historical study of the Post Impressionist period was by John Rewald whose seminal and magisterial study Post-Impressionism: From Gauguin to Van Gogh was first published in 1956.<br> <br> <br> <br><b>Connaught Brown</b> presents an innovative and dynamic exhibition programme each year. Aside from the twice yearly mixed exhibitions of important works from the gallery's specialist periods, <b>Connaught Brown</b> has presented a series of important solo exhibitions of previously under exposed artists. These have concentrated on European émigré artists working in London and Paris during the period, and the previously under exhibited artists working amidst the varied <b>Post Impressionist</b> groups.<br> </body>