Artist of the day, June 25: André Lhote, French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life

André Lhote, (1885—1962), was a French Cubist painter of figure subjects, portraits, landscapes and still life. He was also very active and influential as a teacher and writer on art.

Lhote learned wood carving and sculpture from the age of 12, when his father apprenticed him to a local furniture maker to be trained as a sculptor in wood. He enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux in 1898 and studied decorative sculpture until 1904.

Whilst there, he began to paint in his spare time and he left home in 1905, moving into his own studio to devote himself to painting. He was influenced by Gauguin and Cézanne and held his first one-man exhibition at the Galerie Druet in 1910, four years after he had moved to Paris.
Cubism

After initially working in a Fauvist style, Lhote shifted towards Cubism and joined the Section d'Or group in 1912, exhibiting at the Salon de la Section d'Or.

The outbreak of the First World War interrupted his work and, after discharge from the army in 1917, he became one of the group of Cubists supported by Léonce Rosenberg. In 1918, he co-founded Nouvelle Revue Française, the art journal to which he contributed articles on art theory until 1940.

Lhote taught at the Académie Notre-Dame des Champs from 1918 to 1920, and later taught at other Paris art schools—including the Académie de la Grande Chaumière and his own school, which he founded in Montparnasse in 1922.

Lhote lectured extensively in France and other countries, including Belgium, England, Italy and, from the 1950s, also in Egypt and Brazil. In Egypt Lhote worked with Effat Nagy using Egyptian archaeology as subject matter for their work. His work was rewarded with the Grand Prix National de Peinture for 1955, and the UNESCO commission for sculpture appointed Lhote president of the International Association of Painters, Engravers and Sculptors.

Lhote’s most significant work was not as a visual artist, however, but rather as a writer who articulated Cubist theories and as an educator who influenced a generation of French artists. In 1922 he founded his own art school in Paris, the Académie Montparnasse.

Mr André Lhote

1900, Séville

1906,Sous Bois I

1908, Horse in a Meadow

1908, In the Woods

1908, The Pink Tree

1909, Bathers in the Woods

1909, Portrait de ma femme

1909, Le jardin de l'amour

1910, Female Nude Lying Down

1911, Les bineuses de fraisiers

1911, Port De Bordeaux

1912, La ferme

1912, Le jugement de Paris

1912, Paysage français

1913, Dessin pour "L'escale"

1913, L'Escale

1913, Sur Les Fortifs

1913-14, Le 14 de Juillet, Port de Bordeaux

1914, Paysage au Lambrequin Rose

1915, Scottish Hat

1916, Le carousel

1916, The Sailors Meal

1917, The Quarry

1918, Courtesans

1918. Study for "Homage to Watteau"

1919, two women reading

1920, Bouquet de fleurs dans un vase

1920, La terrasse

1920, Le Marin à l'accordeon

1920, Mademoiselle Hering

1920, The Hamlet in the Valley

1920-24, Expressive Head

1922, Nue pensive 

1924, Portrait d'Anne

1924, Portrait de femme a la robe rose

1925, House by the Lake

1925, Les deux amies

1925, Portrait d'Anne

1926, Vue de Paris ou La Seine au point du jour

1928, A la plage

1928,Les baigneuses

1930, Le 14 juillet à Avignon

1930, Portrait d'Anne

1930, Self Portrait

1930, The Sailor and The Martinican Woman

1930-31, Le Port de Bordeaux

1935, Crossroads

1935, éloge de l'architecture

1935, Lady in an Interior

1940, Village

1942, Femme à sa toilette

1944, Les Meules à Mirmande

1950-52, Woman and Bird Cage

1956, Boats on the Shore

1960, Porte d'Autumne

Landscape of Lot

After The Bath

Femme assise

Femme nue de dos

Nue à La Draperie