Yves Brayer, between Provence and Paris

Yves Brayer

He was a French painter who was popularly known for his everyday paintings. After living in Spain, Morocco, and Italy, he finally settled in Provence. His main focus was on the traditional figurative, enhanced by his vision.

He was a lover of landscapes of the Mediterranean. His artwork turned out to be very diverse because, besides painting landscapes, he also painted portraits, still lifes, and vast canvases. He is still celebrated as the modern French painter who stands out.

Many of his paintings remain permanently displayed at the Contemporary Art in Cordes, the Museum of Modern and France, and in many other museums in the home country that he belonged to. In the United States, his fine art can be found in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.

Brayer in Paris


Yves settled in Paris in the Pantheon neighborhood, where he then moved to Monsieur le Prince in 1935. He continued painting in Paris through all these different periods. He then went to settle in Cordes Sur Ciel in the Tan department. Here, a museum was dedicated to showcasing his work where it would open its fine rooms with Yves’ work.

Up to recent days, estades.com has embraced Brayer’s talents and exhibits, and you can find his fine art at Estades gallery. Brayer realized that he could paint in inter-war France. In 1942, Jacques Rouche appointed Brayer as a costume-and-set designer for ballet at Opera de Paris. This is where he was committed to his work until the end of a war in 1945.

Brayer Provence work

He moved to Provence in 1945. When he moved to Provence, he was inspired by the architectural nature of the countryside region. Yves Brayer artist was driven by the fact that no human being had thought of coming up with the architectural splendor of the region.


He is attracted by the different forms, the limestone folds, and the large Camargue stretch filled with black bulls and white horses. He would spend several months of every year in Provence, drawing some fine art of the region’s natural beauty.

In Les Baux-de-Provence, there is a museum named after this famous artist called Yves Brayer Museum. This museum is dedicated to showcasing the great work done by one of the most creative and talented French artists, Yves, since 1991 when it was opened.
The museum has more than one hundred canvas paintings done by Yves, drawings, and watercolors that you will get to see when you visit the museum.

After spending some time in the Spanish period that favors the dark or black colors, then the period in Italy with ochre and terra cotta reds, he adds varieties on his thin board with pale yellow, greens, and several blue shades. Because of his strong attraction to the Mediterranean landscapes, he went back to work in Italy and Spain.

He was a great adventurer who liked to capture the rhythm and light of all countries he visited, which helped him come back with many watercolors and drawings. Among all these places he visited, Camargue and Provence remained his favorite places until he died in 1990.

His achievements

He made his first exhibitions in the salons in 1927. After staying in Morocco for some time, he moved to Italy, where he got to win the Grand Prix de Rome in the year 1930. In 1952, he was awarded the Grand Prix des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris and at the same time elected in the Academie des Beaux-Arts in 1957.
In 1963, he traveled to New York, where he made another exhibition at the Wildenstein Gallery and Mexico.

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