Louis Garin

LOUIS GARIN (Rennes, 1888- Val-d'Izé, 1959).
"The fishermen".
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 78 x 105 cm; 90 x 117 cm (frame).

We are before a juicy composition in theme and treatment, to deploy before us a vivid scene starring families of fishermen. They have just docked on the beach. The fishermen carry the fish in wicker baskets; a fellow fisherman stirs the nets, a mother cradles her sleeping baby and a couple of children help their elders. The whitish flesh tones of the younger ladies contrast with the weathered faces of the sailors. Louis Garin was a self-taught painter who developed his own style linked to the land, to the Breton people he saw working in his daily life. He uses a bright and contrasting palette, and has a special ability to capture the variety of human types of humble extraction, which he portrays with tenderness.

Louis Garin was born into a modest family whose father was a railroad worker. He worked with his father at the Compagnie des chemins de fer de l'Ouest until 1935. He enrolled in evening classes at the Regional School of Fine Arts in Rennes. He painted in his spare time and during vacations. Illustrator and painter of landscapes and lyrical subjects, he is famous for painting only the Breton region. In 1922 he exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Between 1928 and 1938, he worked for the Manufacture de la Grande Maison de la Hubaudière, known as "H. B", in Quimper1, especially in the company of the sculptor René Quillivic and the painters Alphonse Chanteau (1874-1958) and Georges Brisson (1902-1980), Georges Renaud (1901-1994), Paul Fouillen (1899-1958) and the Toulouse-born René Beauclair (1877-1960), during the full productivity of the "Odetta" brand (Les Ateliers de l'Odet). In 1935, he collaborated in the decoration of the tourist class lounge of the Normandie ocean liner. At the same time, he left his job as a railroad worker to devote himself entirely to painting after being commissioned to decorate the church of Sainte-Thérèse in Rennes. He was in charge of the decoration of the Breton pavilion at the 1937 Universal Exhibition in Paris. He also painted several restaurant decorations, such as Le Menach in Le Bono, the Hôtel Du Guesclin in Rennes, Manche-Océan in Vannes, the Hôtel Bellevue in Trébeurden, as well as in churches such as Saint-Joseph in La Trinité-sur-Mer, and the church of Saint-Lézin in La Chapelle-Janson in 1959, a few months before his death.