Raymond Besse

Saskatchewan NAC Auction House Biography and Notes

Raymond Besse was born at Niort, France in 1899 and grew up in the Berry province. He first came to Paris in 1917 where he met Pablo Picasso, Maurice de Vlamninck and for a time worked with Maurice Utrillo. In 1923 he had two canvases accepted by the famed Salon des Independants, and later by the Salon de la Nouvelle Realite and the Salon d'Automne. In 1927 his first solo exposition was held at the Galerie Cheron. Besse was an officer of the Academie de Paris, and developed his art in the Post-Impressionist School. He was given the nickname "The Painter of Old Walls" because he favoured the older, unadorned, blue-collar suburbs of Paris. Raymond Besse retired to the Loire area in the mid 1960s, and died in 1969, in the Loire area near the setting of this painting.