Laprade had good basic training, first at the
Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Montauban and later at the Académie
Carrière in Paris. He exhibited first at the Salon des
Indépendants in 1901 and later showed his work regularly
at the Salon d’Automne and at the Salon des Tuileries.
A Post-Impressionist who looked above all to
the example of Cézanne, he was also a great admirer of
the work of 18th-century French painters, and it is their example
that accounts for his loose, fluid brushstrokes, subdued colours,
delicacy and tendency to sentimentality.
He travelled often to Italy, making three prolonged
visits there from 1908 to 1914, and underwent the influence of
Italian artists such as Giovanni Fattori and Filippo Carcano.
In his pictures he treated both intimiste interiors
and melancholic landscapes, for example The Corn (1919;
Paris, Pompidou) and the watercolour Les Alyscamps (Montpellier,
Mus. Fabre). He also produced a number of suggestive views of
French cities, for example View of Paris (c. 1920; Lyon,
Mus. B.-A.).
Laprade was also a prolific illustrator. Among
his most notable works in this medium are an edition of Vers
et prose by Paul Valéry, illustrated with reproductions
of watercolours, and an edition of Jean de La Fontaine’s
Amours de Psyché et de Cupidon, illustrated with
original etchings. He also illustrated Marcel Proust’s Un
Amour de Swann (Paris, 1930), Paul Verlaine’s Fêtes
galantes and works by Gustave Flaubert and Guy de Maupassant,
among others.
- Bibliography
- Alberto Cernuschi: Grove Dictionnary
of Art
- E. Jaloux: Pierre Laprade (Paris, 1925)
- L. G. Cann: Laprade (Paris, 1930)
- F. Florent: Pierre Laprade (Geneva, 1950)
