12 x10 in.French 1860-1943. HENRI-JEAN-GUILLAUME MARTIN features prominently in the development of neo-impressionism and was a successful artist throughout his life time.From his hometown of Toulouse, Henri Martin won a scholarship to study in Paris where he entered the atelier* of Jean-Paul Laurent and soon began to exhibit at the Salon des Artistes Francais*. In 1885 he traveled to Italy where he was first exposed to the pointillist* canvases of Edmond Aman-Jean and Ernest Laurent. Stimulated by his trip to Italy, Martin began to develop his own style of short feathery strokes of fragmented color, a divisionist-inspired technique that changed little over the rest of his life. At the same time the artist started to attach a greater importance to landscape in his compositions.A popular artist, Martin was commissioned to paint large murals for both the City Hall of Toulouse and the Palais Royal in Paris. He had several exhibits at the Galerie Georges Petit and a retrospective exhibition at the Petit Palais in 1935. Having been born in Toulouse, Martin found that he missed the light of southern France terribly and dreamed of a house where he could live and paint.In 1900, at the age of 40, he found this ideal house in a small village in the department of Lot called La Bastide du Vert located near Cahors. The 17th century stone manor named Marquayrol, or "Mas Cayroux" ('the house of pebbles' in the old southern French dialect) was situated on sixty acres atop a hill and had all the advantages he was looking for.Over the next forty years, Marquayrol became Martin's favorite summer retreat where he would retire from Paris between the months of May and November. Martin depicted every single feature of the house: the round pool and its statue, the terrace, the pergola, the vineyard and the gate were all to become recurrent subjects in his work. Martin's palette of bright oranges and greens captures the intense sunlight and pulsating colors of southern France, while the brushstrokes, fragmented colors and cool shadows help explain Martin's frequent classification as a follower of Georges Seurat.PUBLIC COLLECTIONS:Musee d'Orsay, ParisMusee de Petit Palais, ParisMusee Carnavalet, ParisMusee des Beaux-Arts, BordeauxMusee d'Art Moderne, StrasbourgMusee des Augustins, ToulouseMusee des Beaux-Arts, Brest

Good condition, minor crease in upper left corner