Henri Malançon

Henri Malançon (December 20, 1876 - December 20, 1960) was a French painter born in Paris. He died in Voutenay-sur-Cure, Yonne of France.

Life

Malançon was born in Parisian middle-class family.^[1] His father was a banker, and Malancon was raised by his step-mother, Marie-Comélie Falcon, a well-known lyric tragedian under the July Monarchy (often indicated, indiscriminately, as his grandmother). He completed his secondary education at Louis-le-Grand, where he studied classic culture.

At the age of twenty-three, he married Alice Josse on May 24, 1899. Their daughter, Germaine, successively became Gaston Bergery’s bride, an official senior close to the Left-Wing Coalition and the influential journalist Georges Boris, who would have an important role in the Resistance. Malançon divorced on May 24, 1924 and, a year later, remarried Antoinette Destrem (1881 – 1942), a gifted painter. She later died during the Second World War.

In 1904, after his military service, he joined the Julian Academy, where he learned painting. He stayed there for two years and become friendly with Yves Alix, Pierre Bompard, the sculptor Vigoureux, Maurice Savin, Souverbie, Georges Braque, Dunoyer de Segonzac, Frédéric Deshayes, La Fresnaye, Legueult and André Lhote. On Braque’s advice, he pursued his studies, from 1905 to 1914, in the Humbert Academy. After World War I, in which he was called up for military service, Malançon began his painting career. He then took the habit to stay in elections regions where landscapes served as a source of inspiration for him. He first chose Brittany and then Normandy. We found him in this way, in 1923, in Honfleur, in Paul-Elie Gernez's company. A watercolour painting of him showed Henri Manlançon and his wife painting Honfleur, while an oil painting by Malançon showed Gernez painting himself The famous Calvados Port.

In 1930, he organised, in the Eugène Druet galery, a personal exposition which includes 25 paintings. The critic Louis Vauxcelles wrote in the Carnet de la Semaine of March, the 2nd of 1930 : “Malançon – that I have appreciated for a long time and Segonzac, Moreau, Simon Levy, Gernez share my feeling – is today at his best. This indecisive person in quest for himself for a long time, was frightened to death up to today. His consents, with a unique and precious harmony, the firmness of his construction, are of its own. Malançon, indifferent to the success and congenitally unable to do the lower movement of pushiness, was like surprised, I will say stunned of the success best people give to him...”

Malançon often left Paris, where he lived in the 80, Pierre-Demours street, to travel France. He paints in Céret, Saint-Tropez, in Camac (where Bompart joined him), Pont-l'Abbé, Saint-Paul-de-Vence, Gargilesse in Creuse…

In 1934, the Malançon’s family discovered the Vézelay's hill with enchantment. This site, where nature and history perfectly matches is supposed to seduce the 2 painters.

They spent there a long and constant stay, and bought, in 1940, a house in Voutenay-sur-Cure, not far from Vézelay. That is where the couple settled during the Occupation. But Antoinette Destrem dies in February 1942, asking to the governess, Mrs Lucienne Sauterau, to take care of his husband after her death. She will fulfil this task with diligence and loyalty.

Affected by Antoinette’s death, Malançon hardly ever painted during the 1940s. Despite this, he became a recognized painter, collected by amateurs and also worked for states commissions. The years’ war are marked especially by his resistant fighter’s activities, with Miss Sautereau, in the network F2. They sheltered unamenable to Compulsory Work Service, from December 1944 to the Liberation of France, they accommodated underground an officer from the Royal Air Force.

Malançon died on December 20, 1960.

Work

Painting, a mental thing

Malançon choose to paint nudes, still lifes, landscapes (and often aquatic landscapes, another common feature with Marquet). Classic, he is the way he tackles these themes, with a brightness pushed up to the ellipse, the attention to accuracy construction, the recourse to a range of colors where the control win out over the effect.

References