Oeuvres sur papier : peintures, dessins, gouaches, aquarelles, pastels
[2ème partie]
Parallèlement à ses peintures sur toile, Nagao USUI a
réalisé des œuvres sur papier d'une grande diversité : peintures, dessins,
gouaches, aquarelles et pastels retracent le parcours de cet artiste
franco-japonais, depuis les débuts avec les modèles qui posent à
l'atelier jusqu'aux années de maturité, avec les paysages de Provence.
A Japanese in Paris, this is how Nagao Usui appears to us. Though he was born in Japan, Usui settled permanently in France in 1970 while presenting his works in his homeland every year. His first exhibitions raised art collectors’ interest who enjoyed those paintings tinged with somber hues, reminiscent of Cézanne’s accents, emerging from still lifes, bunches of flowers and landscapes. All his paintings are imbued with restraint and nostalgia which intersperse his artwork with touches of poetry and melancholy. Enthusiastic about Western painting, Nagao Usui soon discovered the typical light of the South in his masters’ works, that is why he quickly set up his easel in Provence where he painted the type of landscapes Paul Cézanne loved so much. Further south, the Var coast equally inspired him as in his paintings of Saint-Tropez and its harbor or the seascapes at Cogolin… Through radiant, vibrant and sensitive paintings, he displayed for us the poetry of a Provençal mas, of a country-house buried among vineyards or of a Marina with its sailboats. Nagao Usui has also painted wonderful landscapes in Burgundy, Paris and Ile-de- France. While painting on canvas, Nagao Usui has at the same time produced a larger variety of works on paper such as oil paintings, drawings, gouache, watercolors and pastels. All of them describe the journey of this Franco-Japanese artist from the beginning with his models posing in his studio up to his mature years with his landscapes of Provence.
