Louis-Martin Rey – Portrait of a Bearded Man – Circa 1903

Louis-Martin Rey was an American portrait painter and draughtsman. Born in San Francisco, California, on September 4, 1886, he was the son of a French immigrant hatter, who in 1909 founded a Franco-Californian daily: L'Écho de l'Ouest.

An early talent for drawing and painting while a student at Lincoln Grammar School enabled Louis-Martin Rey to become a student at the Mark Hopkins Institute in San Francisco around 1899. Soon after, at the age of 14, his father sent him to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. While there, a bad cold developed into tuberculosis, and he returned to his hometown in 1904. After the Great 1906 San Francisco Earthquake, he moved to the drier climate of New Mexico where he died in 1908.

Portrait of a bearded man. Watercolour on paper. Signed in the lower left corner, this work must have been executed around 1903, during his stay in Paris. In very good condition, it has a slight sign of a previous restoration on one side of the paper, to the right of the figure.

Sources: David Karel: Dictionnaire des artistes de langue française en Amérique du nord. Peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs, graveurs, photographes et orfèvres (Presses de l'Université Laval, Québec, 1990).

Artist: Louis-Martin Rey (1886-1908)
Signed on lower left.
Medium: Watercolour on paper.
Condition: Very good condition.
Dimensions: 26 x 23 cm. / 10 ¼ x 9 in.
Frame: 45 x 40 cm. / 17 ½ x 15 ¾ in. Giltwood and gesso, mat and glass. Good condition.
Origin: France.