William Malherbe (1884 - 1955)
William Malherbe was a French Post impressionist painter born in 1884 in the medieval town of Senlis just north of Paris and was well known both in the U.S. and in Europe for his beautiful and colorful still lives, outdoor scenes, and nudes.
Malherbe's artistic success came the 1930s when he exhibited at Salon d'Automne and after he was taken up in by the gallery Durand-Ruel, the famous Parisian gallery whose fortune had been made by its backing of the Impressionists.
In 1939, at the age of 55, William Malherbe emigrated to New York City and exhibited at the Corcoran in Washington D.C. He later moved to a farm in Thetford, Vermont until 1948.
His exhibitions at the Corcoran Gallery were highly successful, and his colourful post-Impressionist Vermont and Gloucester scenes, full of light and paint-flecked pleasure, are still highly sought-after. Some even consider William Malherbe an American artist, but his work is essentially rooted in the French post-Impressionist tradition of Bonnard and late Renoir.
As a painter, William Malherbe preferred to paint on wood rather than canvas, and refused to varnish any of his work until at least ten years had passed, believing that oil paint took that long to completely dry.
He returned to France in 1948 and died there in 1955.
Works by William Malherbe are in the collection of the Musee d'Art Moderne in Paris among other collections.