Gaston LARRIEU (1908-1983). Portraits of Landes. Wood engraving and enhancement signed lower right (knocks and chips, paint missing). Panel size: 30 x 26 cm "Painter born in Eugénie-les-Bains in 1908, died in Saint-Paul-lès-Dax in 1983. He came to painting late in life. In 1938 and 1939, he attended the studio of the painter R.-M. Castaing, then isolated himself in Eugénie-les-Bains at his parents' home, devoting himself mainly to the study of drawing. It wasn't until 1950 that he began to paint in oils, falling under the influence of his friend André Lhote's neo-Cubism, but withdrawing from it in 1953. It was then that art critic Max Vignon discovered his work and organized an exhibition for him in Paris, which was an immediate success. In 1956, he exhibited a portrait of his friend Pierre Benoît, an academician, at the Salon des peintres témoins de leur temps. Later, he was to illustrate Benoît's novel "L'Oiseau de Proie". Faithful to the Landes region, Gaston Larrieu presented a retrospective exhibition in Dax in 1971, an assessment of thirty years of research reflecting a long journey through eclecticism in which the Landes landscape mingles with still life, portraiture and flowers. Gaston Larrieu exhibited in Tokyo from 1966 to 1970, in Athens and Kuwait City, and won first prize in the American Society of Travel's international competition in 1970". Source: Dictionnaire biographique : Mémoire des Landes edited by Bernadette Suau, 1991.