Artists

Andre Demonchy

French, 1914-2003

Andre Demonchy was born in Paris in 1914. He never went to school and following the death of both parents became a ward of the state at an early age. He worked on farms under difficult conditions until 1938 when he found a job with the railways as an office worker in Paris. He claims to have always drawn in his spare time. In 1944 he began to make watercolors which he sold to support his young family. In 1947 after receiving advise from collectors he tried oils for the first time and in 1948 he received his first exhibition in New York. In 1949 he had an exhibition in Paris and then became a regular in events showing naive art. His inspiration was initially the landscapes of Yonne, the region where he worked as a child. He always drew on personal experiences for the subjects of his paintings, such as county fairs, the railways and the towns and villages he loved. As he developed, his grasp of perspective grew particularly in the scenes of Paris and he delighted in putting as much detail as possible in his buildings and the walls. Demonchy is often considered to be in the first rank of French self-taught artists following such luminaries as Rousseau and Bauchant.