Jean-Julien Lemordant (1878 - 1968)

Of Malouin origin, Jean-Julien Lemordant studied painting in Rennes and then in Paris, at the Bonnat workshop. He then followed in the footsteps of Gauguin in Pont-Aven and Doëlan, before settling in Penmarch. Taking advantage of the research of the Pont-Aven School and the Fauvists, he invented his own pictorial language, made of movement, strength and colour.

At the age of 28, the little-known young painter received his first major commission. The owner of the Hôtel de l'Épée in Quimper asked him to decorate the main dining room. The decoration, painted between 1906 and 1909, has been on display in its entirety since the renovation of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Quimper in 1993. This sixty-square-metre decoration was a great success both in Brittany and in Paris at the time and contributed to the painter's great reputation. It also launched the fashion for frescoes in hotels in Brittany.

In 1913, he was asked to decorate the ceiling of the theatre in Rennes, before the war disrupted his career. From the status of a promising young painter, Lemordant became a victim of war, taken over by the military and politicians. Wounded several times and then taken prisoner by the Germans, Lemordant became blind: he regained his sight 50 years later, after some thirty operations.