JOSEPH LE TESSIER 
1867 - 1949

French Postimpressionist Painter

Born in Marseille, at a very early age Le Tessier showed an innate faculty for the arts, favored in it by his mother, an amateur artist and descendant of the sculptor Simon. Le Tessier’s father, however, was an established merchant and saw things differently.  The paternal taste for profit obliged Joseph to study business in Lyon. Armed with the necessary diplomas, he subsequently immersed himself in the business. He lasted there ten years.

In 1900, he left the family business and, delivered of a long-suppressed frustration, gave himself body and soul to painting. Le Tessier was 33 years old and had his artistic future is still in front of him. He tirelessly studied works of painters from Lyon, Carrand, Vernay, and Ravier. His first and last exhibition took place in Lyon in 1911, and it was a triumph.

After his exhibition, Le Tessier began, with his wife and their daughter Marthe, a long period of wandering that ultimately brought them to the Yonne in Voutenay during World War I.  Le Tessier achieved there numerous oils of small formats, all treated on the nabi model beloved of Emile Bernard and Paul Sérusier.  In 1925, Le Tessier arrived in Vincennes and discovered the art galleries of the capital.  He was enthusiastic about Vlamick, Modigliani, and Soutine.  His daughter Marthe learned the etching process and the sale of her works helped the family to support itself. 

In 1933, the Le Tessier family landed in the middle of the country in the south of Aisne. Noroy-sur-Ourcq is a small village perched on the heights, overlooking the valley of the Ourcq, and is Jean Racine's native country. The material life of the Le Tessiers began to somehow organize itself.

For Le Tessier, Noroy will be the place of the accomplished miracle. His pictorial writing has finally arrived to maturity. Taken of an irrepressible vital impulse, the 66 year-old painter suddenly asserted a radiant youth. It is a triumph; an explosion of colors and permanent fireworks! From morning till night, he walked the Orxois' paths, his painter's gear under the arm. He looked avidly at the surrounding nature: the curvaceous hills of the Orxois, wheat fields flooded with sun, the Marne valley quivering with light, still-life astounding of colorful lyricism. 

The painter "with the illuminated palette” died in July 1949, at the age of 82, leaving behind him more than six hundred paintings and not a penny.  In 1952, three years after his death, a retrospective of his work took place in Lyon and unanimously, the art critics praised Le Tessier's uncommon genius.

References: 

Translated from a  text by Noël Coret, "Les peintres de la vallée de la Marne, autour de l'impressionnisme". Published by Casterman )

Photo:  Poivon Et Fluers - Oil on canvas