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Roger Fresnaye
Roger de La Fresnaye(11 July 1885 – 27 November 1925) French painter who synthesized lyrical colour with the geometric simplifications of Cubism. Although La Fresnaye’s paintings did much to popularize Cubism and to broaden its influence just before World War I, he later abandoned avant-garde art and became one of France’s most influential advocates of traditional realism.
La Fresnaye was born in Le Mans where his father, an officer in the French army, was temporarily stationed. The La Fresnayes were an aristocratic family whose ancestral home, the Château de La Fresnaye, is in Falaise.
From 1903 to 1909 Roger Fresnaye studied at the Académie Julian, the École des Beaux-Arts, and the Ranson Academy in Paris. From 1908 he studied at the Académie Ranson under Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier, whose joint influence is evident in early works such as Woman with Chrysanthemums, 1909. This demonstrates the dreamlike symbolist ambience and stylistic character of work by the Les Nabis group.
In his early work he was influenced by the Symbolist paintings of Maurice Denis (who was his teacher at the Ranson Academy), but about 1910 La Fresnaye developed an interest in Cubism. From 1912 to 1914 he was a member of the Section d’Or, a Cubist association that met regularly at the studio of the painter Jacques Villon.
Although La Fresnaye incorporated Cubist techniques into his paintings, he retained a naturalistic style, never fully embracing the radical analysis of form employed by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. La Fresnaye’s sensitivity to colour gave his Cubism an unorthodox sensuousness. He was influenced by the French painter Robert Delaunay’s Orphist style, a strain of Cubism that emphasized lyricism and colour. La Fresnaye employed colourful prismatic shapes reminiscent of Orphism in works such as The Conquest of the Air (1913), but unlike Delaunay’s abstract compositions, La Fresnaye’s images are representational.
He was influenced by Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso, but his work has a more decorative than structural feel and his prismatic colours reflect the influence of Robert Delaunay. He was a member of the Puteaux Group, an orphist offshoot of cubism led by Jacques Villon. His most famous work is The Conquest of the Air, 1913, which depicts himself and his brother outdoors with a balloon in the background.
La Fresnaye enlisted in the French army in World War I but contracted tuberculosis and was discharged in 1918. After being discharged from the French army in 1918, La Fresnaye went to the south of France to recover. There he continued to draw and paint in watercolour; he still worked with Cubist techniques, but he increasingly emphasized colour and emotion.
His health deteriorated rapidly after the war. He never recovered the physical energy to undertake sustained work. In the later paintings that he did create, he abandoned cubist spatial analysis for a more linear style. He ceased painting in 1922 but continued to draw.
De la Fresnaye died in Grasse in 1925 at the age of 40.
On March 24, 2017, a new record was established for a work by De la Frensaye at auction when “La conquête de l’air, avec deux personnages” sold for €2,370,500 at Christie’s in Paris.
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The Conquest of the Air
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $249.00Le Cuirassier
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $229.00Artillery
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00Married Life
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Bathers
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00L’Apparition devant les rochers de Grasse
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $299.00Blond Man
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $229.00The Fourteenth of July
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00Seated Man
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00The Postman in a Shelter with a Friend
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00Joan of Arc
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $359.00Man with a Red Kerchief
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $299.00Soldier Smoking
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00The Rower
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00July Fourteenth
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00La Madelon
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $229.00Smoking in the Shelter
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Mask
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00The Grooms
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00A Herdsman
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00The Poet
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00Castor and Pollux
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $289.00Le Diabolo
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Louis-Philipe Table with a Bottle and Glass
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00Mademoiselle Maria Zimmern
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $369.00Nature Morte a l’Equerre sur Disque Noir, avec Bouteille d’Encre
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $249.00Nature Morte a l’Equerre
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Nature Morte au Diabolo
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $289.00The Magician
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Portrait of Gampert
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00Alice in a Large Hat
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00The Patient
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $299.00The Patient
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00The Romanian
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00Peasant
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00Portrait of Guynemer
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $249.00Alley of Acacias in the Bois de Boulogne
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00Cows in a Meadow
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00The Factory Chimney, Meulan Landscape
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00The Meulan Viaduct
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00The Road, La Ferte-sous-Juarre
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Entrance to the La Fresnaye Villa in Grasse
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00Landscape at Ferte-Sous Jouarre
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00Houses at La Ferte-sous-Juarre
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00Undergrowth
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $249.00Landscape at Hauteville
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Standing Nude Facing Forward
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $339.00Two Nudes in a Landscape
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $289.00The Child Shepherdess Marie Ressort
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00Gampert in a Jersey
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00Saint Sebastian Healed by the Holy Women
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Still LIfe with Books and Boxes
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00Still Life with Coffee Pot and Melon
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $289.00Still LIfe with Egg Cup
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Still Life with Lemons
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $249.00Still LIfe with Teapot
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Still Life with Three Handles
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $289.00Poppies in a Vase
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Still Life, Tin of Tea and Pot of Tobacco
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00The Penholder
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00Georges de Mire at the Easel
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $249.00Alice Reading beside a Cup of Tea
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00The Italian Girl
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $389.00The Hills Beyond Meulan
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $259.00The entrance to the village
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $279.00L’Ecossais
By Roger FresnayeSizes starting at $269.00