Artists

Jacques Martin-Ferrieres  

French, 1893 – 1972

A painter remarkable for his highly personal portraits and landscape views, Jacques Martin-Ferrières was the son of the great post-Impressionist painter Henri Martin (1860-1943).  He studied with his father and with the French academic painter Frederic Cormon (1845-1924).  Like his father, Martin-Ferrières became a master at reproducing the scintillating effects of light on canvas.  Despite his father’s strong influence, though, Jac developed a technique that was uniquely his own: paint is applied in swift and short brushstrokes of opaque color, at times overlapping and at times separated, revealing a pale ground layer and producing a mosaic-like surface.

Martin-Ferrières was awarded many national prizes, including an honorable mention at the Salon of 1920, a silver medal in 1923, the National Prize in 1925, and a Gold Medal and Legay-Lebrun Prize in 1928.  A retrospective of his work in 1965 confirmed his respected status.