LOS ANGELES, CA.- The Association Émile Friant (A.E.F.) was founded in June 2020. The purpose of A.E.F. is to study and promote the work of the French Lorraine Naturalist painter, Émile Friant (1863-1932).

A.E.F. is looking for paintings, pastels, gouaches and watercolors by Friant for inclusion in the forthcoming digital Catalogue Raisonné on the artist. In addition, A.E.F is seeking any documents pertaining to Friant, which could assist in the research on the artist.




Founding members of The Association Émile Friant: Mô Frumholz-Burtin, Arnaud Berodier, Michèle Leinen, Pascale Pavageau, Eric Weider, Polly Sartori

Émile Friant (1863-1932)
Like many Naturalist painters of the nineteenth century, Émile Friant has been long overlooked despite his overwhelming success and notoriety during his lifetime. A flurry of recent scholarship on Naturalism, together with two important monographic exhibitions: Émile Friant, un nouveau regard, which took place at the Georges de la Tour Museum in Vic-sur-Seille in 2006 and more recently in 2016, a comprehensive show at the Musée des Beaux-arts de Nancy, has brought renewed attention to Friant and his remarkable representations of the everyday social realities of his time. Friant’s Naturalist commitment to the depiction of the lives and leisure of the rural working classes was consistent with artistic representations in the final decades of the nineteenth century, as typified by Jules Bastien-Lepage in painting and Emile Zola in literature. Friant’s interest in modern subject matter also echoed that of the French Impressionist painters, however, his painting technique was more traditionally oriented. Where he innovated was in the use of his own photography to compose his paintings, making him a forerunner in understanding the potential of this exciting new medium. His photographic sources allowed him to meet his requirement for precision, particularly in the realization of faces and hands. This is one of his trademark characteristics which makes his portraits so touching and alive.

Friant’s ability to explore the human condition as he so honestly depicted in his paintings is as relevant today as it was during his lifetime. He is an artist worthy of rediscovery.

Please direct all enquiries to: contact.associationef@gmail.com