René Seyssaud

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René Seyssaud (16 June 1867 – 26 September 1952) was a French painter from Provence who is seen as a precursor of Fauvism. Born in Marseille, he spent his childhood at his family home in Villes-sur-Auzon. His father, Siffrein Seyssaud, was a lawyer. He showed talent early and studied at the Marseille School of Fine Arts (1879–1883). After his father's death in 1885, he studied at the Avignon School of Fine Arts under Pierre Grivolas. Seyssaud was known for a strong temperament and a bold, bright color palette, and he is often linked with Louis Valtat as an early precursor of Fauvism. His first major show was at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1892, and he later helped run the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Tuileries. He married Louise Philibert on 11 January 1899 and settled in Villes-sur-Auzon, where he chose Mont Ventoux and the Nesque Gorge as his subjects. In 1901 a critic praised him as a solitary master who owes nothing to anyone. Because of tuberculosis, he moved nearer to the sea in 1904 and settled in Saint-Chamas, by the Étang de Berre, where he lived for the rest of his life. He did sometimes return to the Ventoux region, and in the mid-1930s he had a studio in Aurel. His relatives Paul and Philippe Seyssaud, like him, became painters. René Seyssaud died in Saint-Chamas on 26 September 1952. A portrait by Pierre Ambrogiani is in the Saint-Chamas museum, and a 1950 photograph by Norman Parkinson is in the National Portrait Gallery in London. He is best known for still lifes, landscapes, and depictions of peasant life, especially inspired by Provençal scenery near Villes-sur-Auzon and Saint-Chamas. A street in Marseille and the René Seyssaud Library in Villes-sur-Auzon honor him.