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Camille Bombois

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Camille Bombois (3 February 1883 – 6 June 1970) was a French naïve painter especially noted for paintings of circus scenes, public parks and river landscapes, still lives, and female nudes. He is often associated with self-taught modern painting in France and was compared during his lifetime to Henri Rousseau, although his work was generally more grounded in observed experience than fantasy.

Early life

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Bombois was born in Venarey-les-Laumes in the Côte-d'Or, in humble circumstances. His childhood was spent living on a barge and attending a local school until the age of twelve, when he became a farm worker. His father worked as a boatman and later for the Paris–Lyon–Méditerranée railway. During his free time he drew and competed in wrestling competitions at local fairs. According to later accounts, he began sketching at around the age of sixteen, drawing scenes from the rural life around him. He became a champion local wrestler before joining a traveling circus as a strongman and wrestler. He first performed with Lucien Gay's circus and later joined the Minard-Caron circus.[1]

Move to Paris and Early Career

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In 1907, Bombois fulfilled his dream of moving to Paris, where he married and worked as a railway laborer, eventually finding a night job at a newspaper printing plant handling heavy newsprint rolls.[2] Before taking that position, he also worked as a laborer on the construction of the Paris Métro. Despite the exhausting nature of his job he painted from dawn to dusk, sleeping little.[3] Later accounts describe him as having deliberately sought night work so that he could reserve daylight hours for painting, a routine he maintained for several years while developing his technique and style. He showed his paintings in sidewalk exhibitions, but his earliest paintings, revealing the influence of the old masters in their subdued use of color, attracted few buyers.

First World War and Artistic Breakthrough

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1914 marked the beginning of four-and-a-half years of military service in World War I. Bombois spent much of it on the front line, earning three decorations for bravery. Later, he received distinctions for bravery at Chemin-Creux, Chemin-des-Dames, and again on the night of the armistice. Upon his return home, encouraged that his wife had succeeded in selling a number of his paintings in his absence, he resumed his routine of night labor and daytime painting. In 1922, his sidewalk displays in Montmartre began attracting the attention of collectors. The first public display of his work took place in an open-air exhibition near his home on the rue Caulaincourt, where the poet Noël Bureau was among the first to champion his paintings. The art dealer Wilhelm Uhde "discovered" him in 1924, and exhibited Bombois' work in the Galeries des Quatre Chemins in 1927.[4] Other early supporters included Florent Fels, Madame Gregory, Mathot, Jacques Guenne, and the critic Maximilien Gauthier.[5] In 1937, his works were shown in the exhibition "Maîtres populaires de la réalité" in Paris.[4] His first solo show was in 1944 at the Galerie Pétridès.[4]

Style and Subjects

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Critics compared Bombois' work to that of Henri Rousseau, which it resembled in its naïve drawing, crisp delineation of form, and attention to detail, although Bombois was less of a fantasist than Rousseau.

The paintings of his maturity are bold in color, featuring strong contrasts of black, bright reds, blues and electric pinks. Drawing from his own experiences, he often painted circus performers and landscapes with fishermen. Writers on his work frequently emphasized that his subjects were drawn from direct experience and observation rather than invention, particularly in his depictions of circus life, waterways, and village scenes. His paintings of women are emphatic in their carnality, a subject some commentators connected to his admiration for physically imposing female figures, which recur throughout his work,,[4] and his landscapes are notable in their careful attention to space, and to the effects of reflected light on water. His compositions have also been noted for their solidity and order, often organizing figures and objects with a pronounced sense of balance and stability.

Later Life and Death

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Although Bombois became a celebrated figure in French naïve painting, he was described by Klaus Perls as thinking of himself less as an artist than as a skilled artisan. He continued painting into old age and lived quietly in a modest house in a working-class district of Paris.[6] His wife died before him, and the couple had no children.[7]

In 2023, Bavarian town of Passau in Germany restituted a painting by Bombois that had been looted from Jewish collector Marcel Joseph Monteux, who was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on August 15, 1944.[8] A memorial exhibition was organized by Perls Galleries later that year.[9]

Collections and Legacy

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Bombois' works are on view in many public collections, notably the Musée Maillol in Paris and the Zander Collection in Cologne.[10] He has been described as one of the major figures of twentieth-century French naïve painting, and later critics have pointed to the formal sophistication of works such as his nudes and interiors alongside the directness for which he became known.

Exhibitions

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Notes

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  1. ↑ Gauthier, Maximilien (1938). "The Early Years". In Cahill, Holger (ed.). Masters of Popular Painting: Modern Primitives of Europe and America. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
  2. ↑ Gauthier, Maximilien (1938). "The Early Years". In Cahill, Holger (ed.). Masters of Popular Painting: Modern Primitives of Europe and America. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
  3. ↑ Gauthier, Maximilien (1938). "The Early Years". In Cahill, Holger (ed.). Masters of Popular Painting: Modern Primitives of Europe and America. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
  4. 1 2 3 4 Pouillon
  5. ↑ Gauthier, Maximilien (1938). "The Early Years". In Cahill, Holger (ed.). Masters of Popular Painting: Modern Primitives of Europe and America. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
  6. ↑ Gauthier, Maximilien (1938). "The Early Years". In Cahill, Holger (ed.). Masters of Popular Painting: Modern Primitives of Europe and America. New York: Museum of Modern Art.
  7. ↑ Perls, Klaus (1970), Camille Bombois: Memorial Exhibition, New York: Perls Galleries
  8. ↑ "La ville de Passau restitue deux œuvres spoliées par les nazis aux héritiers de Marcel Monteux". lootedart.com. Retrieved 2023-11-06.
  9. ↑ Perls, Klaus (1970), Camille Bombois: Memorial Exhibition, New York: Perls Galleries
  10. ↑ https://sammlung-zander.de/en/camille-bombois-2/
  11. 1 2 3 https://sammlung-zander.de/en/archive/
  12. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Susanne Zander, ed. (2023), 26 Artists. Works from the Zander Collection, Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, pp. 43–70

References

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  • Museum of Modern Art (1938). Masters of Popular Painting. Modern Primitives of Europe and America. Exhibition catalog, New York, p. 29.
  • Bihalji-Merin, Oto (1959). Modern Primitives: Masters of Naive Painting. trans. Norbert Guterman. New York: Harry N. Abrams. p. 267.
  • Zander, Charlotte (1996): Die Maler des Heiligen Herzens. Bönnigheim: WachterVerlag, p. 47.
  • Zander, Charlotte (1997): Die Clowns des Camille Bombois. Bönnigheim: WachterVerlag.
  • Zander, Charlotte (1999): Camille Bombois. Bönnigheim: WachterVerlag.
  • Pouillon, Nadine. "Bombois, Camille." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press. Web.
  • Zander, Susanne (2023). 26 Artists. Works from the Zander Collection. Cologne: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König. p. 43.
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