Grimaces et misere. The return of paintings by Fernand Pelez to the Petit Palais, the Musee des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris

The Petit Palais possesses an outstanding collection of paintings and drawings by Fernand Pelez (Paris, 1848-1913). that entered the collections in 1913 shortly after the painter's death. A well-known figure in Parisian artistic circles under the Third Republic, Pelez initially trained in history painting in Cabanel's studio at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Launched on a respectable career, in the 1880s he opted for Naturalism in order to depict the poverty-stricken lives of the industrial underclass. After having regularly exhibited at the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts, he forsook the Salons and continued working in the solitude of his studio. His clinically dry and deliberately modest technique appears in both his painting and drawing in a singular manner. The presence of paintings by Pelez at the renovated Petit Palais will contribute to the rediscovery of an artist who worked on the fringe of the various avant-garde movements of his day.