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an image of a painting of a woman in a chair surrounded by picturesan oil painting of a woman holding a book in a wooden framea painting of a man in a suit and tie standing in front of a brown wall
DE BAECQUE et Associés - Lyon

283 - Attributed to Marcel AVRIL (1887–1944)
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Estimate €100 - €150
Sale commission
Description
Attributed to Marcel AVRIL (1887–1944) The Craftsman, 1934 Pastel and charcoal, titled within the image at the top centre, dated on the frame glass at the bottom right, annotated in the lower margin: ‘We are ugly because we are great; we are great because we are free. We are the Artisan, the genius and the life of the world’ H. 62 cm – W. 47 cm (visible) Provenance: Armand Avril Collection (1925–2026), Cotignac (Var) Marcel Avril (1887–1944) was the father of the artist Armand Avril (1926–2025). The collection of fifteen works we are presenting, drawn from the family archive, offers a wonderful opportunity to rediscover a major figure in the visual arts in Lyon during the 1930s and 1940s and beyond, the ambitious and extremely rare works of an artist deeply committed to the cause at the heart of the turmoil of the Second World War. Marcel Avril, a collector of paintings and primitivist art from the 1920s and 1930s onwards, was a man of very strong political convictions in the spirit of the Popular Front, a defender of the workers’ cause and a peace activist. His paintings bear witness to his commitments and offer a deeply troubled vision of a world with apocalyptic overtones. The profound strangeness of his painting, which to our eyes is without equal, is evident in a striking blend of Expressionism and Surrealism, imbued with a highly personal, incantatory mysticism. In Lyon, he exhibited with the Témoignage group, under the auspices of Marcel Michaud, in 1940, 1941 and 1943. In January 1944, his political activism led to his arrest by the Gestapo, followed by his deportation to Germany, where he died in December of the same year. Since then, his work has been shown only once, at the exhibition ‘Groupe Témoignage 1936–1943’ at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, exactly 50 years ago, in 1976.
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About the sale 20th–21st CENTURIES – DESIGN – MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART
Auction location
Auction time 10/17/2026 at 2:30 PM
Lot description modified on 10/05/2026 at 2:39 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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