André MAIRE (1898-1984) Lively scene on the banks of a river, Saigon Oil on isorel signed and located "Saïgon" lower right H_60 cm - W_73 cm (frame) Provenance : - Sale by Me Blache, Versailles, November 25, 1989, n°73 - Private Collection Note : Born in Paris in 1898, André Maire trained at the art school on the Place des Vosges, where in 1914 he met Émile Bernard, the father of Symbolism, who was to become his father-in-law. On his advice, André Maire enlisted in the colonial infantry to travel and explore new subjects. His first trip was to Saigon from 1919 to 1920. There, he taught drawing intermittently at the Lycée Chasseloup-Laubat. He discovered the ruins of Angkor and gradually forged his own stylistic vocabulary. After several trips to Europe, Africa and the Indies, André Maire was appointed Professor of Drawing at the École Supérieure d'Architecture in 1948, initially based in Dalat, then relocated to Saigon. He thus returned to the former Indochina, now torn between the governments of the South and the North, where he remained until 1958, before returning to France. Unlike some French artists who had painted Indochina in a somewhat conventional Orientalist style, he invented his own style that allowed him to express his emotion for the landscapes, people and heritage of these regions. The mountains, pine forests and mountain tribes of Dalat, with their colorful costumes of the first period, gave way to scenes from the life of the Kinh of the plains, or Việt, the majority ethnic group in Vietnam. From "André Maire, retour en Indochine (1948-1958)", Musée Cernuschi, Paris, exhibition May-September 2021.