Albert Marquet Biography

Albert Marquet was born in Bordeaux 27 March 1875. He went to Paris at the age of fifteen to train as an artist, studying at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he met fellow fauvist Henri Matisse in 1890. Matisse became a life-long friend and both artists were accepted in Gustav Moreau's painting class in 1897. In 1900 they worked together on the decoration of the Grand Palais at the Paris World Exhibition. Marquet's first paintings of this period, with their decorative, bright colours, are strongly influenced by the Fauves. He participated in a group exhibition with Matisse, Derain and Vlaminck at the "Salon d'Automne" in 1905. The following year Marquet travelled through France and then went on to visit Germany, Holland, North Africa, Russia and Scandinavia. Between 1940 and 1945, Albert Marquet lived in Algiers, he then returned to Paris permanently two years before his unexpected death at La Frette-sur-Seine on 14 June 1947.

Artist's Statement

English painter John McLean is among those who consider Marquet's "feeling for colour, the lightness or darkness and saturation of it, its weight, is nothing less than astounding."