Vintage 1975 Marzelle French Exhibition Poster

Vintage 1975 Galerie Guiot poster featuring the work of Marzelle.

19" x 28"

Jean Marzelle (1916-2005) was the youngest child of a family of three. From a very early age, the young boy was fascinated by drawing and painting, which he discovered at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier. As a secondary school pupil, he started his apprenticeship in the fine arts by copying works of the masters exhibited at the museum (Ingres, Eugène Delacroix, Gustave Courbet as well as the Impressionist, Frédéric Bazille).

His yearning to devote his life to painting came to the fore and, in 1934, he enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Montpellier, where he joined the drawing class under Monsieur Descossy and produced his first painted works en plein air in the Montpellier region. That same year, he joined the Society of Painters of the Hérault as an exhibiting member.

The following year, Marzelle moved to the rue Mouffetard in Paris, where he shared a studio with friends. He enrolled at the Parisian École des Beaux-Arts, where he was accepted for competitive entrance examinations in the galleries and copied ancient sculpture. He augmented his training and knowledge by regular visits to the Louvre.

His visit to the Cézanne exhibition at the Musée de l'Orangerie in 1936 was a shock for him. He confided in a friend, "Now I understand what real painting is." Marzelle continued to copy the masters on visits to art galleries and was interested in the work of Picasso, Marquet, Signac, and Rouault.