Émile François Jacques Compard

1900-1977

Émile Compard was born on October 13, 1900 in Paris. He was encouraged from an early age by the collector Richard Goetz, who would later introduce him to Félix Fénéon. Fénéon owned the Galerie Bermheim-Jeune where Pierre Bonnard was also represented.

Compard studied at l’Académie Julian from 1916 to 1920 and at the Araujo atelier from 1920 to 1922. In 1961 Compard created a series of humorous drawings about his time spent at l’Acadédemie Julian.

In 1922 Compard married Simone Dangla and had a son, François. He would later divorce and remarry Anna Sophie Johanesson and have two more children, Anne-Marie and Eric.

During his time spent in Faouët and the Port Doëlan he came to know and befriend many artists working at the time, including Pierre Bonnard and Pierre Tal Coat, both of who had a great impact on Compard’s work. Compard would also frequent the restaurant Chez Mélanie and created a series of portraits of the owner, her husband and famous patrons.

Compard exhibited prolifically at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, Salon des Indépendants, Salon des Tuileries, and the Salon d‘Automne, of which he was a member. Other exhibitions include the Salon de la Jeune Peinture Contemporaine, Galerie d’Art du Montparnasse, Galerie A. Fabre and Galerie Renaissance and, in 1937, l’Exposition Universelle. Compard’s work was shown in New York, Berlin, Munich, Dusseldorf, and Stockholme.

Having worked under cubist influence and encouraged by Félix Fénéon and Pierre Bonnard, Compard came to experiment with the non-figurative. Compard was also greatly influenced by Taoist teachings and turned to the metaphysical in his work.

A collection of his work has been exhibited in a retrospective, “Émile Compard 1900-1977” at the Musée du Faouët in Morbihan, in the south of Brittany.

Compard died in 1977.