Maxime Maufra (1861 - 1918)

Painter of the Pont-Aven School. His favourite subjects are landscapes and seascapes. He was also an engraver.

Born in Nantes, Maufra started painting with the brothers Charles and Alfred Leduc, reproducing landscapes along the Loire. It was during a stay with a trader in England imposed by his father that Maxime discovered Turner's paintings, for which he fell in love. Encouraged by the Nantes landscape painter Charles Le Roux, a pupil of Corot, Maufra began to paint around Nantes and along the Breton coast. He exhibited at the Salon from 1886 onwards, but it was not until 1889, at the age of 28, that he gave up business to devote himself completely to painting.

It was at the beginning of 1890 that he settled in Moëlan-sur-Mer and then in Pont-Aven. At the Gloanec Inn he became friends with Moret and Loiseau. His friends Dezaunay and Lanoë soon joined him. He met Gauguin there, of course. He lived with Marie Henry in Le Pouldu until 1892 where he met Moret and Filiger. In 1893 and 1894, Maufra and Gauguin met in Paris. Gauguin dedicated a drawing of two portraits of a Breton woman to him, which clearly shows their friendship and their mutual respect for their art: "To my friend Maufra, to the avant-garde artist, aïta aramoe", which means not forgotten in Tahitian. From this period he keeps a taste for the simplification of planes and a frontal character of the composition. The particularity of Maxime Maufra is that he knew how to keep his independence from all the artistic trends of his time.

1895 was a great year for Maxime, he got married and Paul Durand-Ruel became his gallery owner, which he remained until his death. This collaboration made him a recognised painter in France, Europe and the United States where he exhibited many times. He is present in museums all over the world.

He is a painter who represented Brittany a lot, but also Normandy, the Paris region, the South of France...