Bruno-Émile Laurent

Bruno-Émile Laurent, known as BEL, is a French painter born in 1928. The Montmartre museum exhibits several of his works, while the Moulin-Rouge, which considers him the last great painter of Montmartre, publishes a lithograph by his composition. He is one of the greatest painters of the “Montmartre school”. Several retrospectives of his work have taken place. If the critics considered the painting of Bruno-Émile Laurent as inspired by Maurice Utrillo in the vein of poetic realism and post-impressionism, his style has known in recent years an evolution towards a more colorful invoice and a narrative composition made up of juxtaposed sketches. on a set of spots. Nostalgia is at the heart of his inspiration: sensitive to the Paris of yesteryear, that of "bougnats, sellers of coal, merchants of the four seasons who moved with their cart" in his youth, he readily integrates legendary characters such as the songwriter. Aristide Bruant, the dancers of the French cancan and views of the missing Montmartre. With a touch of humor and hedonism, he revisits film masterpieces such as Les Enfants du paradis, La Traversée de Paris. It pays tribute to Vincent van Gogh, to Auguste Renoir, to the Medrano circus. Enamored of freedom and anxious to make the spectator dream, Bruno-Émile Laurent goes against spectacular contemporary art, even nihilist and provocative, in favor of a conscientious and descriptive profession in the tradition of easel work, clean at the French fine arts. Among his favorite subjects are views of Montmartre under the snow and the Lapin Agile.