ADOLPHE VALETTE STUDIES

 

Adolphe Valette taught L.S Lowry for many years at the Manchester School of Art and played a major role in his development as an artist. Lowry said of him:

 

“I cannot over-estimate the effect on me… of the coming into this drab city of Adolphe Valette, full of French Impressionists, aware of everything that was going on in Paris. He had a freshness… that was a very wonderful thing… I had not seen drawings like these before.”

 

As part of our Spring Exhibition we are showing five works on paper by Valette. All are animal studies and these fully authenticated works come from a large portfolio of his sketches. Valette was very fond of farm animals and dogs, his sketchpad was never far away and he was quick to capture the movement of an animal. These quick studies in pencil, charcoal and watercolour give us an insight into how he worked and some of the animals he sketched later appeared in oil paintings and watercolours.

 

Adolphe Valette

Young Hen

Watercolour

8½ x 11½ ins

 

 

Adolphe Valette

Two Cows

Watercolour

12 x 9 ins

 

 

Adolphe Valette

Study of Goats

Pencil drawing

9 x 12 ins

 

 

 

Adolphe Valette

Sleeping Calf

Pencil drawing

7½ x 9½ ins

 

 

Adolphe Valette

Sleeping Dog, 1916

Pencil drawing

4 x 5¼ ins