Mid-century floral pastel on paper - Edmond Freess (1938-2016) 33½" x 39¾"

A large mid-century floral pastel on paper by Edmond Freess (1938-2016). This particular painting is evocative of Irises by Vincent Van Gogh.

Freess was born in Paris and died in Roussillon, Provence.

Excerpt translated from Wikipedia France:

Having some attractions for art, it was during his schooling, at the age of fifteen, that he took courses at the School of Applied Arts and then at the Beaux-Arts .

In 1956, he made his first exhibition of gouache painting in Paris.

At that time, a group of friends answering the name of “ allumé de la Place du Tertre ... ” was made up of Pierre Fabre , Albert Plantier [ 1 ] , Annie Ravage (alias Annie Nobel) [ 2 ] , Philippe Fourastié , Monique Morelli , Jean-Max Rivière , Jean Ridez [ 3 ] , Michel Magne and himself. All artists, they play together in various productions and stay in touch for a long time.

He had a painting exhibition in 1958 at the Atelier 9 gallery which was located at the impasse Trainée ( rue Poulbot ), under the name of Ange.

His journey was interrupted by a " trip to Algeria organized by the French Army " (from 1953 to 1961) as he wrote with humor in his curriculum vitae [ 4 ] .

After his return from Algeria, he made several exhibitions of paintings in Neuchâtel , Lausanne and Montmartre.

He entered the world of cinema as chief machinist and decorator (1965-1968) for around twenty films, notably with Jean-Luc Godard , Claude Chabrol , C. Belmond, J. Rouffinot. During the next two years, he served as artistic director for the film Les Gauloises bleues by Michel Cournot , which could not be presented at the Cannes film festival [ 5 ] due to an interruption following the events of May 68 . As an actor, he has a role (uncredited [ 6 ] ) in the film La Bande à Bonnotby Philippe Fourastié . During this period, he was the author and director of six short films including L'Examen du petit [ 7 ] . The short film Comme larrons en foire [ 8 ] represents France at the Cannes film festival [ 9 ] .

Over the following years, he produced around thirty advertisements for French and Italian television.

He reappeared in front of the screen, in 1972, as an actor in the television series Mandrin by Philippe Fourastié, then as an author-director in his first feature film, Le Trèfle à cinq feuilles , with Philippe Noiret , Jean Carmet , Paul Préboist , Liselotte. Pulver , which is filmed in the Pays d' Apt in the Luberon .

A few years later, he continued his career as a screenwriter and director with the feature film Deux imbéciles happy , with his friend Jean-Roger Caussimon and the collaboration of actors Maurice Biraud , Dora Doll and Armand Mestral . This film is shot in the Luberon region.

He stopped his film career in the 1980s, after writing the screenplay for Pierre Fabre's film Everything depends on the girls .

Devoting himself to his lifelong passion for painting, he exhibited in his stronghold in Montmartre in 1976, followed by an exhibition in 1978 in Rolle in Switzerland and another in 1981 in Bonn and Freiburg in Germany .

Just married to his wife Uli, it was in 1982 that he settled permanently in the Luberon by acquiring an equestrian inn near the village of Roussillon (Vaucluse) . He made two exhibitions in Paris, one private in 1991 and the other at the Transparence gallery in 1995, before opening his own art gallery in Roussillon [ 10 ] .

Productive, he made a dozen exhibitions of his paintings in various galleries and salons in addition to the creation and inauguration of a new gallery, "Atelier Edmond Freess", before passing away on April 3 , 2016, in his region of creation and adoption.