Jean-Martin ROCH (1905-1991),

Maternity,

Circa 1940.

Oil on canvas,

Biography :

The work of Jean Martin-Roch, a Provencal master born in 1905, sees himself first of all as that of a self-taught person for whom painting and carving is "an act as natural as eating or sleeping". He thus feeds his painting with works of museums and later trips around the Mediterranean or Argentina.

If the artist occupies a workshop in a former convent disused at Pierredon, he also lives as a real socialite of the early 30s. Méraud Guinness-Guevara, daughter of the wealthy Lord Guinness who shares his life for several years, introduces him into the intellectual sphere of the time, where Picasso, Picabia, Gertrude Stein, Max Ernst, Hemingway and many others meet.

His work bears the stigmata of surrealist painting, refined, stylized, tinged with poetry of the 30s.