20th-century watercolor beachscape of young lady in a yellow hat by Odilon Roche 19" x 22½"

A delightful watercolor beachscape painting dating from the twentieth century by Odilon Roche. The painting features a group of happy people including a woman in a yellow hat (as inscribed by the artist on the back) relaxing in the sand on the beach in France. The painting is framed behind glass and mounted with an off-white mat and gilt frame. An artist with a unique history, he rubbed shoulders with characters like Picasso to Chanel along his journey. Read more below.

About the artist:

Odilon Roche was born in Chateauneuf-sur-Loire, France, in 1868 and died in 1947 in Six-Fours-les-Plages (a commune in the Var department of Provence/French Riviera). "He was a prolific watercolourist painter (wash) and draughtsman specializing in beachscapes. Odion Roche was a professional wine taster who travelled around Europe attending wine fairs. in about 1900, he opened a shop selling artists supplies in Paris, where Renoir, Maurice Denis, Pissarro, Culpaga and Steinlen were customers.

In 1905, he opened a second shop where he was one of the first people to display Chinese antiques, which Anatole France, the gastronome Curnonsky and the Guitrys came to see. The shop was opulent, and Honegger, Sauguet, Auric and Casadesus held their first concerts there. Colette and Coco Chanel were aiso customers. No one knows how he learned to paint, but in his case, there were special circumstances. In 1917 he was given the opportunity by his friend M. Benedit, the executor of Rodin's will, to put the sculptor's works in order after his death. He worked on this classification for about ten years, and it is likely that his intense admiration for Rodin began there, and that he would have had plenty of time to learn the fairly simple technique Rodin used for his wash drawings and watercolors, as well as his style.

Roche's own works were deeply influenced by Rodin. In 1931 he went to live in Six-Fours, just above Sanary, where he painted the bulk of his works - coastal scenes, which he painted from nature, travelling from beach to beach. A truculent old man with a white beard, wearing eastern dress (a robe and turban), he did not go unnoticed. The work of this extraordinary figure is pleasant rather than seminal, and was only discovered in 1971, giving rise to an exhaustive search. As an artist, he certainly deserved this attention, all the more because he never dreamed of deriving glory or profit from his art."