Why Olivier Masmonteil Trains Emerging Artists in His Paris Studio – RisePEI

In a lineage that features the likes of Tintoretto, Titian, and Rubens, artists have lengthy maintained massive studios, wherein assistants—beforehand referred to as apprentices and college students—helped execute these famed Outdated Masters’ main commissions with a purpose to sustain with demand.
With a staff of almost 10 individuals, Paris-based artist Olivier Masmonteil is following that instance, as one of many final peintres d’atelier in France. The impulse stems primarily from his adoration and respect for Outdated Masters, however can be pragmatic because it permits him to maintain up with an growing quantity of commissions since 2016. However most necessary to Masmonteil is the hands-on expertise that the rising artists he employs get whereas working within the studio.
After rising up in France’s central Corrèze division and learning on the École des Beaux-Arts in Bordeaux within the late ’90s, Masmonteil left France to spend a 12 months on the former cotton-mill Leipziger Baumwollspinnerei in Germany, the place he got here into contact with artists Neo Rauch, Tim Eitel, Tilo Baumgartel, customary bearers for the New Leipzig College. He quickly returned to his residence nation earlier than touring all over the world twice between 2008 and 2012. These travels gave rise to hundreds of small panorama work that first introduced consideration to the artist.
Additionally in 2012, Masmonteil began a collection of homages to the likes of Titian, Vermeer, Courbet, and different Outdated Masters, copying their works and including numerous layers to them to create a collection referred to as “La Mémoire de la Peinture” (Reminiscence of Portray), like a flamboyant model of the already exuberant Entrée d’Alexandre dans Babylone (Alexander Coming into Babylon) by Charles Le Brun, the premier peintre du roi (First Painter to the King), that Masmonteil has became a triptych.
Picture: Pierre Douaire
A few of these personalised copies, together with Masmonteil Alexandre à Babylone I, II and III, are at the moment on view on the Fernet-Branca Basis in Saint-Louis, Switzerland, which is accountable for the artist’s first institutional solo present in 20 years. In the course of the press view forward of Artwork Basel, Masmonteil proudly gave credit score to those that have helped him alongside the best way, beginning with grasp printer Emmanuel Mattazzi, who has discovered a method to create serigraphs with oil relatively than ink particularly for Masmonteil. Collectively they labored on a collection titled Les Demoiselles retrouvées (The Rediscovered Younger Women), which options female figures gracefully fading into or out of a furnished background, typically juxtaposed onto a panorama, all as a manner of “recovering [the canvas with various layers] to unveil.”
“Once I wander in regards to the Louvre, I wish to be a part of the historical past that hangs on the partitions”, mentioned Masmonteil, who at all times retains in thoughts that Rubens had about 250 individuals lending him a hand. The passionate peintre d’atelier refers to his assistants as collaborators.
Masmonteil’s first assistant, Nicolas Marciano, landed in his studio in Saint-Ouen, to the north of Paris, in 2017. His arrival coincided with Masmonteil’s first fee from chef Yannick Alléno to contribute to the design of the Pavillon Ledoyen, a three-Michelin-star restaurant positioned subsequent to the Petit Palais in Paris. “At first I used to be undecided how a lot his presence would trouble me. There’s something so sacred about artwork in France, that it must be the work of 1 particular person,” Masmonteil mentioned. “After letting Nicolas sq. the canvases up, put together the backgrounds, apply the primary layers—duties I usually take pleasure in—I quickly realized they might profit him extra. That’s how our collaboration started.”
Picture: Aurélien Mole
By the point a fee got here from the St. Regis Venice for Masmonteil to create his personal interpretations of Tintoretto’s masterpieces within the Palazzo Ducale, Nicolas was already standing on his personal two ft, able to take the lead within the work’ fabrications. Former artwork instructor Lara Bloy, who now oversees the studio, quickly joined. She was adopted carefully by Alexandre Lichtblau, a painter who can now afford to work solely twice every week as a dentist. (Masmonteil was so struck by his utility that he felt it unimaginable to show the budding artist down.) And at last the group was joined by 24-year-old Agathe Chebassier, the youngest of the group, who was to enter the École des Beaux-Arts in Marseille however determined to review underneath the aegis of a longtime artist like Masmonteil as an alternative.
With the accountability of ripe skills on his shoulders, Masmonteil needed to refill on provides (educational plasters, extra paint, brushes) and create an in depth however balanced schedule with slots dedicated to his initiatives and free time for them to seek out their artistic voice. On Thursday mornings your complete studio is invited to attract nude fashions. “They’ve all been feminine up to now however we will even have male sitters coming into the studio from September onward,” mentioned Masmonteil, who is set to provide his pupils the most effective training there may be. These courses have been established due to Lichtblau, who faucets into his contacts from his time on the Académie de La Grand Chaumière starting in 2017.
“Positive, the extra we’re, the quicker we are able to work however I largely love instructing, sharing my expertise with a youthful technology, serving to them eliminate the stereotypes that have been imparted to me once I began 20 years in the past,” Masmonteil mentioned. “Once I was their age, I used to be instructed that portray was useless. There have been no portray courses on the Beaux Arts in Bordeaux. I needed to educate myself the right way to use a brush, by studying, observing, helping restorers and copying previous masters, which I nonetheless do.”
Courtesy Olivier Masmonteil Studio
By selecting Masmonsteil over seemingly extra prestigious faculties, his collaborators say they’ve intentionally signed up for the college of life. “We’re studying from the previous masters he has us copy but in addition from him whereas engaged on his initiatives. And I’ve time to develop my very own figurative approach on the facet,” mentioned Bloy, who additionally maintains a studio in the identical constructing as Masmonteil’s.
“Not solely can we discover ways to stretch a canvas, but in addition the right way to take care of galleries, mount an exhibition, problem an bill,” Chebassier mentioned. “There is no such thing as a one else extra pedagogical than he’s.”
If Masmonteil’s studio have been ever to undertake a motto, as different artwork faculties have, it might most likely be “There’s power in unity,” he mentioned.
Added Chebassier, “I do know artwork college students who complain about being left to their very own gadgets whereas we, however, are at all times serving to one another out. This type of synergy is, I imagine, fairly distinctive in France.”
“These artwork college students, counting on regional authorities and FRACs [public regional collections of contemporary art], stay relatively remoted,” Lara mentioned. “We, quite the opposite, work as a collective, at all times displaying a united entrance. I grew up within the South of France the place artwork was not thought of profession materials. I’m glad I didn’t hear.” Earlier this 12 months, she offered a portray to actual property and finance tycoon Paul Talbourdet, considered one of Masmonteil’s most common patrons.