Pierre Adolphe Valette (13 October 1876 – 18 April 1942) was a French
Impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
painter who spent most of his career in England. His most acclaimed paintings are urban landscapes of
Manchester
Manchester () is a city and the metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester, England. It had an estimated population of in . Greater Manchester is the third-most populous metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, with a population of 2.92&nbs ...
, now in the collection of
Manchester Art Gallery
Manchester Art Gallery, formerly Manchester City Art Gallery, is a publicly owned art museum on Mosley Street in Manchester city centre, England. The main gallery premises were built for a learned society in 1823 and today its collection occupi ...
. Today, he is chiefly remembered as
L. S. Lowry's tutor.
[Mark Brow]
"Exhibition for 'Monet of Manchester' who inspired Lowry"
''The Guardian'', 14 October 2011
Life and career
Born in
Saint-Étienne
Saint-Étienne (; Franco-Provençal: ''Sant-Etiève''), also written St. Etienne, is a city and the prefecture of the Loire département, in eastern-central France, in the Massif Central, southwest of Lyon, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes regi ...
in eastern central France, on 13 October 1876, he trained at the
Ecole Municipale de Beaux-Arts et des Arts Decoratifs in
Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...
. Valette arrived in England for unknown reasons in 1904 and studied at the
Birkbeck Institute, now part of the University of London. In 1905 he travelled to the North West of England where he designed greetings cards and calendars for a Manchester printing company. He attended evening classes at
Manchester Municipal School of Art and in 1907 he was invited to join the staff as a teacher.
Salford
Salford ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in Greater Manchester, England, on the western bank of the River Irwell which forms its boundary with Manchester city centre. Landmarks include the former Salford Town Hall, town hall, ...
painter
L. S. Lowry became a pupil of Valette, and expressed great admiration for his tutor, who taught him new techniques and showed him the potential of the urban landscape as a subject. He called him "a real teacher ... a dedicated teacher" and added: "I cannot over-estimate the effect on me of the coming into this drab city of Adolphe Valette, full of French impressionists, aware of everything that was going on in Paris".
In 1920 Valette resigned from the Institute owing to ill health. He stayed in Lancashire for eight more years, teaching privately and painting in Manchester and
Bolton
Bolton ( , locally ) is a town in Greater Manchester in England. In the foothills of the West Pennine Moors, Bolton is between Manchester, Blackburn, Wigan, Bury, Greater Manchester, Bury and Salford. It is surrounded by several towns and vill ...
. In 1928 he returned to Paris,
and subsequently moved to
Blacé en Beaujolais where he died in 1942.
A series of fourteen drawings by Valette, mounted between glass as
lantern slide
The magic lantern, also known by its Latin name , is an early type of image projector that uses pictures—paintings, prints, or photographs—on transparent plates (usually made of glass), one or more lens (optics), lenses, and a light source. ...
s, were used by his second wife to give a lecture in 1945, at Manchester University, about winemaking in Beaujolais.
Valette's paintings are
Impressionist
Impressionism was a 19th-century art movement characterized by visible brush strokes, open Composition (visual arts), composition, emphasis on accurate depiction of light in its changing qualities (often accentuating the effects of the passage ...
. Manchester Art Gallery has a room devoted to him, where the viewer may compare some of his paintings with some of Lowry's, and judge to what extent Lowry's own style was influenced by him and by French Impressionism generally.
The Lowry
Lowry is a theatre and gallery complex at Salford Quays, Salford, Greater Manchester, England. It is named after the early 20th-century painter L. S. Lowry, known for his paintings of industrial scenes in North West England. The complex opened ...
hosted an exhibition of about 100 works by Valette, alongside works by Lowry, between October 2011 and January 2012. It included paintings of Manchester from Manchester Art Gallery and loans from private owners.
Legacy
There is a commemorative
blue plaque
A blue plaque is a permanent sign installed in a public place in the United Kingdom, and certain other countries and territories, to commemorate a link between that location and a famous person, event, or former building on the site, serving a ...
to Valette, located on the site on Manchester School of Art on Grosvenor Street, in Manchester, inscribed: ''Adolphe Valette (1876–1942), French painter and teacher in the School of Art 1907–1920''.
Gallery
File:Albert Square Manchester 1910, Valette.jpg, Albert Square
File:Adolphe Valette India House Manchester.jpg, India House
File:Oxford Road, Manchester 1910, Valette.jpg, Oxford Road. The Refuge Assurance Building can be seen under construction.
File:Adolphe Valette York Street leading to Charles Street Manchester.jpg, York Street leading to Charles Street
References
Notes
Further reading
*Celia Lyon, (tr. Paul Ratcliffe), ''Adolphe Valette'', Phillimore & Co Ltd (2006),
* Valette and the Post-Impressionists in "The Northern School: A Reappraisal", Martin Regan 2016,
External links
ArtNet: More works by Valette.Geneawikipage on Adolphe Valette
{{DEFAULTSORT:Valette, Pierre Adolphe
1876 births
1942 deaths
Alumni of Birkbeck, University of London
19th-century French painters
French male painters
20th-century French painters
20th-century French male artists
French Impressionist painters
French landscape painters
19th-century French male artists