Property from a Private Collection

PIERRE ADOLPHE VALETTE (FRENCH 1876-1942)
Vineyard hoer
oil on canvas laid on board
33.2 x 41.9 cm (13 1/8 x 16 1/2 in)

PROVENANCE:
Tib Lane Gallery, Manchester
Sale, Capes Dunn & Co., Manchester, 7 October 2014, lot 227

EXHIBITED:
Manchester, The Lowry, Adolphe Valette - A Pioneer of Impressionism in Manchester, October 2011-January 2012

Pierre Adolphe Valette was a French Impressionist painter. Between 1906 and 1920 Valette taught at the Manchester School of Art, during which time he produced his most acclaimed works: a series of Impressionist views of the city that are now in the collection of the Manchester Art Gallery. Valette is remembered for his key role as L.S.Lowry's tutor. Lowry held great admiration for Valette who showed him the potential of the urban landscape as a subject. Lowry recalled of Valette that he was 'a real teacher … a dedicated teacher'...'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'.

Vineyard hoer was painted in the period after Valette returned to France in 1928. During these years in France Valette painted rural and pastoral subjects in pastel colours with loose Impressionistic brushstrokes.