André Lhote (French 1885-1962)
After working with a wood carver in Bordeaux for ten years, Lhote turned to painting in 1906, inspired by primitive African sculpture and the work of Paul Gauguin.
He moved to Paris, started painting and exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne, where in 1910 he discovered the work of Cézanne. In 1909 he became intimate with Dufy and Marchand and in 1910 had his first one-man show at the Galerie Druet. His work was noticed by critics such as André Salmon, Guillaume Apollinaire and Jacques Rivière and his position in the Parisian art world was thus established. In 1911 he made contact with the cubists and applied their stylistic mannerisms to his depictions of everyday objects and landscapes. His works are deliberately composed in complicated systems of interacting planes and semi-geometrical forms. His designs and rhythms were usually intellectualised rather than spontaneous.
From 1917 to 1940 he contributed criticism and articles expounding his aesthetic views to La Nouvelle Revue Française. Named the 'academician of Cubism' by Rosenblum, Lhote was an active defender of the 'moderns' and made a sensation in 1935 by giving a lecture 'Faut-il brle Louvre?' (Is it necessary to burn down the Louvre?).
He was a gifted teacher and exercised an extensive influence on younger artists, through his own academy, the Académie Montparnasse, which he opened in 1922.
Public collections include
Art Institute, Chicago
Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville, Paris
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Bordeaux
Musée des Beaux-Arts Grenoble
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Liège
Musée des Beaux-Arts Nantes
Musée du Petit- Palais, Geneva
Musée Nationale d'Art Moderne, Paris