August - November 2000

Mireille DeSutter, our gracious host at the Pissarro Studio, where Mark Rutkowski and then Pierre Marcel worked from August  to November 2000

Pissarro Studio, Eragny Sur Epte, as sketched by our friend artist Fréderic Lère in September 2000.
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Pierre Marcel :   Jardins ouvriers

 

An apple on the grass of Pissarro's gardenThere is an old apple tree in the yard between the house and the atelier of Pissarro. After Mark went back to Miami, I set up my easel on the property, and painted a series on this favorite theme of mine.

Under the moody Normandy sky, for the painting at the right, however, I started in Gisors, two miles away, and completed it at the Eragny Studio. I set up just under a magnificent tree in the center of a "jardin ouvrier".

"Jardins ouvrier" are public patches of land, allotted to locals, to grow vegetables - these days more for leisure than for necessity- and where the gardeners compete for the biggest cabbage, the heaviest eggplant..., the smokiest Sunday barbecue. They were nice with me, lending me their small wood shack to shelter the paint material at night.

Grower and shower
Is a biographic tale by writer Stephen DiLauro about Pierre Marcel as a gardener.

Apples series
some other apples paintings

in a cabbage patch, while working at the painting at left, sketche by Frederic Lere.


Apples at Gisors September 2000
Eragny Sur Epte
Acrylic on canvas, 47 X 37 inches (117 x 94 cm)
Private collection, USA.


 Return to Pierre Marcel main gallery

 

 

Mark Rutkowski:

 

The carriage house had been unoccupied for some time.
I was on a random tour with my friend Haud the schoolteacher in the tiny village of Eragny sur Epte. She took me to see what was going on with the gardens of Pissarro.Mme Mireille De Sutter , the owner of the house was gracious to a fault and when she showed us the studio and also suggested that I could use it for as long as I wanted  "because I had a kind face" she said.
I moved in that afternoon and by 4 PM I was at work, daily, until I had to depart for Miami in autumn.
On the second story where Pissarro painted, a 17 foot arched cathedral window dominates the North wall.
It overlooks the yard and the bench where, in a photo taken 100 years ago, Chagall and Pissarro are seated.
The ceiling is curved and painted a light sky blue.
There is an iron-age balcony door facing the West which lets in the golden evening light.
During August and September, the light glances across the wood floor bringing out all the colors of the days work.
I would love this time and found it best to simply move the paintings around in this light to see how the glazes are proceeding.
I never needed any artificial light, the studio was designed with natural diffused light in mind.
I worked for 6 weeks in the atelier without missing a day.

See Mark Rutkowski series of skyscapes.  painted Summer 2000 in the studio of Pissarro.