Marchand, Jean

Marchand, Jean (1882–1941). French painter (of landscapes, figure compositions, still-life, and occasional decorative schemes), engraver, illustrator, and designer. He was born in Paris and studied there at the École des Beaux-Arts, 1902–9, whilst supporting himself by designing jewellery, textiles, and other types of applied art. His earliest paintings included landscapes and scenes of tramps sleeping out of doors. In about 1912 he also experimented with Cubism and occasionally with Futurist multiple images, but soon after this he settled into a style of vigorous naturalism akin to that of Derain. When some of his work was shown at a mixed exhibition at the Carfax Gallery, London, in 1915, Clive Bell wrote: ‘No living painter is more purely concerned with the creation of form and the emotional significance of shapes and colours that Marchand.’ His first one-man show was at the Carfax Gallery in 1919 and after this he exhibited frequently in Paris and internationally. In the late 1920s he made a lengthy visit to the Middle East, in the course of which he painted a mural for the Residence at Beirut. Apart from paintings he produced a good deal of graphic work, including numerous book illustrations in lithograph and woodcut.