A few biographical details : - Lot 0

A few biographical details : - January 20, 1906: Born in Paris, Maurice is the youngest of nine children. - 1922: He starts work at the family printing works "Mourlot Frères" at 18 rue de Chabrol in Paris, run by Fernand, the eldest brother, after the death of their father in 1920. Their siblings Georges, Berthe, Jeanne and Andrée also work there. - 1937: Awarded the Prix de Peinture by the City of Paris and a scholarship to study in North Africa, where he stayed for a year, returning with some one hundred works (oils, drawings, watercolors, gouaches, etc.). - 1940: Member of the Salon d'Automne (until 1965). Death of his best friend, the painter Richard Maguet. - Late 1941: Maurice buys the former Saint-Loup-de-Naud town hall-school and moves in with his partner Marceline. - 1968: Marceline dies. Move to rue de la Tombe-Issoire. - March 15, 1983: Dies in his studio on rue de la Tombe-Issoire, and is laid to rest in the Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris. Founding of the Association des Amis de Maurice Mourlot. Maurice Mourlot, a painter in the French tradition Born in 1906, Maurice belongs to a family of printers. From 1922 onwards, Maurice worked in the family business "Mourlot Frères", but it was his brother Fernand who took over the management, directing it exclusively towards fine art lithography. After working as a pressman and then as a draughtsman, Maurice Mourlot produced numerous posters for prestigious institutions such as the Louvre, Musée Carnavalet, Musée Marmottan, Bibliothèque Nationale, etc. Under Fernand's direction, the workshop became very popular with the great artists of the 20th century, including Picasso, Matisse, Soulages, Dubuffet, Chagall, Giacometti and Dufy. In parallel with the famous family business, Maurice cultivated his painting skills much more secretly. Modest and humble by nature, he contributed to the shadow he remained in during his lifetime. He never sought recognition: he didn't show his painting, he painted for himself. He had a continuous sense of wonder about the simplest things. He was first influenced by the paintings of his great friend Richard Maguet. His pictorial work reflects a profound mastery of color and composition, inspired by the great masters, notably the still lifes of Cézanne and Chardin. For a year, following a trip granted by the city of Paris, he painted beautiful landscapes of southern Algeria and southern Morocco. True to the spirit of the École de Paris, he celebrates light and matter with a touch that is both classic and vibrant. Maurice Mourlot and the countryside "His own world - the world of his painting - held him, held him, held him tight as the soil holds the peasant. He was a landowner, Maurice" Jean-Pierre HAMMER During the war, the artist settled in Saint-Loup-de-Naud with his wife Marceline. He also became close to his great friend and now neighbor, the painter Pierre-Eugène Clairin. During this period, Mourlot painted from life the streets of St Loup, the banks of the Dragon, farms, barns and houses, rural life in the surrounding area, farmyard animals and night birds, Briard buffets, as well as jugs, vases, jugs, bowls, terrines and baskets and all the fruits of the region. He loved solid, paunchy, curvaceous forms, pottery, female bodies and plough horses with voluminous, shiny rumps. And above all, scenes of village life that have all but disappeared - blacksmiths at work, shepherds in their houppelande, peasants and ox teams. This part of the work is both art and testimony. Maurice Mourlot, animal painter A friend of animals, Maurice had a secret bond with them that he revealed in his paintings. In Paris, his sanctuary was the Jardins des Plantes, where he sketched all the animals. In his paintings, he seeks to give them back their lost freedom, and only rarely does he evoke railings or fences. Pink flamingos, lions, elephants, bison, llamas, fish, toucans, parrots, gorillas and primates pose for the artist. To the animals of the Jardin des Plantes and the surrounding farms of Saint-Loup de Naud, we must add the ducks and swans of Parc Montsouris and, above all, the cats of all breeds in the garden bordering the rue Tombe-Issoire studios. It was animals again that gave Maurice the opportunity to work as an illustrator. In 1945, the novelist Colette asked him to illustrate her "Douze dialogues de Bêtes". She thanked him in a laudatory dedication: "A Maurice Mourlot qui me fleurit d'images, me couronna de bêtes, enrichit ma prose, et la haussa jusqu'à la poésie".