'Le Petit Village' by Paul Braig (circa 1950s)

'Le Petit Village' (Languedoc), Grape Harvest, Oil on Canvas by Paul Braig (circa 1950s). The grape harvest is under way in a small Languedoc village. In the foreground, pickers bend amongst the vines while a young woman in a white blouse and russet skirt pauses on the path with her pail. Beside her, a bare-chested man hoists a wicker basket of grapes onto his shoulder. Behind them the village climbs in a jumble of whitewashed walls and terracotta-tiled roofs towards a crenellated church tower, topped by an open wrought-iron bell cage of the kind found across the south of France. Beyond, the land opens into a wide, hazy plain of fields and a distant glint of water under a pale turquoise sky.

Braig's handling is naive, loose and layered, with vines built up in thick, tangled strokes of blue, green and red, and figures sketched in with an easy, affectionate line. It is a scene of work, but a warm one, and typical of an artist drawn throughout his career to country people and the land. The work is signed in the lower left hand. It is also signed and titled on the reverse "Le Petit Village (Languedoc)", with the canvas-maker's stamp on the stretcher. Overall, the painting is in good condition. The gallery kept the original frame for its time-worn character, and had the slip reconditioned. Please enjoy the many photos accompanying the listing. Upon request a video will be provided.

Dimensions with Frame:

H 62.5 cm / 24.6"

W 77.2 cm / 30.4"

Dimensions without Frame:

H 46 cm / 18.1"

W 61 cm / 24"

About the Artist: Paul Braig (1906–1972) was born in Munich and trained at the Bauhaus in the 1920s, the era of Klee and Kandinsky, before settling in France and studying under Roger Bissière at the Académie Ranson in Paris. A member of the Peintres Témoins de leur Temps, he worked in a warm, humane strain of Expressionism and had a lasting affection for rural life and the people who worked the land. He was also an accomplished portraitist and poster designer. In 1951–52 he illustrated La Vie imagée de Pablo Picasso, a picture-strip biography of Picasso written by the Surrealists André Breton and Benjamin Péret and serialised in the Paris weekly magazine, Arts. The strip was shown at the Musée Picasso in 2020.