Albert Marquet

Albert Marquet went to Paris at the early age of fifteen to begin a thorough training as an artist. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he met Henri Matisse in 1890. Both artists were accepted in Gustav Moreau's painting class in 1897 and were to become lifelong friends. In 1900 they worked together on the decoration of the Grand Palais at the Paris World Exhibition.

Marquet's first paintings of this period, with their decorative, bright colours, are strongly influenced by the Fauves. He participated in a group exhibition with Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck at the "Salon d'Automne" in 1905. In the following year, in 1906, Albert Marquet travelled extensively through France and finally also visited Germany, Holland, North Africa, Russia and Scandinavia.
Between 1940 and 1945, Albert Marquet lived in Algiers. He only returned to Paris permanently in 1945, two years before his death. Albert Marquet developed his own style, which was influenced by his varied impressions during his travels, around 1910 and adhered to it up to his death. His painting style continued the tradition of Impressionism. 

Marquet dispensed with pure colours and began painting in a reserved, linear style. Due to his travelling, harbour scenes were an important subject in Marquet's oeuvre, which reveal his interest in depicting the light reflections on the water surface. Paintings of the harbours of Marseilles, Rouen and Le Havre, but also of Venice, Naples and Hamburg came into being, but he also painted views of the Seine in Paris at various times of day and in different seasons. They reveal the artist's fondness of a grey, misty or rainy atmosphere, which brings out the thinly applied paint in light shades of grey and black in an impressive manner.