Fin d’Après-Midi, Place St. Marc, au Printemps ( 1968 )
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 10 3/4 x 18 1/3 inches
Signed A. Hambourg (lower right); signed with A.H., dated, and titled (verso)
Parisien born Andre Hambourg, known for his luminous landscapes and seascapes, became a dedicated painter beginning 1927. He studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs and the Ecole Nationale des Beaux-Arts in the studio of Lucien Simon. During the 1930s, he worked in studios in Montparnasse where he had much exposure to modernist movements and its artists. During World War II, he served as a journalist for France and also did much painting from his extensive travels in that capacity, especially to Morocco and Algiers. Towards the end of the war, he fought for the liberation of France.
In 1951, his distinguished reputation as “the grand gentleman of French Post-Impressionism” (Christina) was underscored with his receipt of the Cross of the Chevalier of the Legion of Honor. In 1961, he was honored with the Grande Medaille de Vermeil of the City of Paris, a circular medal with an engraving of the city given as recognition of success in fine art.
Hambourg, who also did illustration, worked in the mediums of oils, pastels, watercolors, drawings, lithography, engraving, fresco and ceramics.
Museum collections in Paris with work by Andre Hambourg include the Musée National d’Art Moderne and the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville. His painting is also in the Eugene Boudin Museum in Honfleur. Hambourg was married to the daughter of Boudin (1824-1898), famous French marine painter.
