Background
Jules Lefranc was born on May 12, 1887, in Laval, Auvergne, France.
Jules Lefranc was born on May 12, 1887, in Laval, Auvergne, France.
Unfortunately, nothing is known about Jules' artistic training and academic education.
Jules Lefranc grew up in Laval, France, where he later owned a hardware store. There he also tried somewhat to the painting in the years 1902 - 1906 and continued his commercial activity until 1928. From that date, he devoted himself definitively to painting. His first one-man show was held in 1938 in Paris, where he lived for some time, and was followed by exhibitions in England, France, and the United States.
Numerous trips gave him the opportunity to paint the landscapes and the monuments that struck him: the castle of Josselin or the numerous variants of Mont-Saint-Michel that is known about him. But it was especially the evocations of old Laval, characteristic of his way of painting that Louis Aragon described as follows: "He is first the painter of Laval and other cities where the same softness French, under the softness of the roofs like a plumage of pigeon, marry with the old stones the shops and the colored signs of today."
He was also the painter of the sea and things of the sea, around the Thatch and port of Sables-d'Olonne or on the Atlantic coast. An important part of his work was dedicated to them: the pier, the buoy, the thousand shades of water were constantly coming back in most of his paintings, the most famous of which was the "Launch of Normandy", created in 1933.
The first donation of his naive works to the Musée du Vieux-Château de Laval was made by Jules Lefranc himself during his lifetime in 1966. He lived in Paris, in the district of Belleville, and sometimes returned to his hometown and settled, at the end of his life, in Sables-d'Olonne where he died in 1972, leaving a considerable work of nearly a thousand paintings.
Rue des Teinturiers
Rue des Chantres
Paysage Basco-Bearnais
Peille
Le Metro aerien
Sailing
Pont des Arts, Institut de France
Les bouquinistes devant Notre Dame
Espalion en Auvergne
La maison du poète
Un coin en Provence
Le pont Marie
Laval, le chateau
Loches
Plage au tennis
Paris du Pont Alexandre III
Bisquine Cancalaise
La petite fleuriste
Cafe maure
La porte Saint-Pierre à Nantes
Camping et projets
Links
Les sables LS914
Laval, porte Beucheresse
Le Mairie-Anne, Saint-Malo
Liberation
Morlaix, brume matinale
La riviere dans l'Ile de France
Mount Cervino
Mayenne a Change
Sacre Coeur
La place Vendôme, Ciel Gris
La mer, cote de la Manche
Jules Lefranc adhered to the artistic traditions of Naïve Art (Primitivism).
