New Arrival: Marius Hubert-Robert (1885 – 1966)

This Post-Impressionist watercolour scene by the painter and illustrator Marius Hubert-Robert (1885-1966), depicts Alert Bay on Vancouver Island. Towering totems watch over mother and child, as they walk hand in hand.

Reacting against the Impressionists’ concern for naturalistic depiction of light and colour, Marius Hubert-Robert spoils us with his illustrative embrace of the colourful.

Born in Paris in 1885, Marius is the great-great nephew of the celebrated landscape painter Hubert Robert (1733 – 1808). His artistic lineage also includes his grand father, Aphonse Robert, the private painter of Louis Philippe I, who was the King of the French from 1830 to 1848, the last king and penultimate monarch of France. Earlier still, is Marius’s great-grandather, Jean-Francois Robert who was Professor of painting at the Grand Duchy of Tuscany during the Napoleonic Era.

Marius Hubert-Robert mounted notable exhibitions at the Salon des Indépendants in 1929, at the Société des Artistes Français, at the Société Nouvelle des Beaux Arts, and at the Salon d’Hiver. He also worked in the 10th Army as a war-time artist during the First World War, and was sponsored by the Astor family for a number of years, allowing him to travel to the United States, Canada, Africa and Greece.

“Vue d’Alert Bay. Totem poles, vers 1925” is showing in the Petley Jones Gallery as of June, 2022.