1970s Jef Friboulet French Signed Lithograph. Printed in France on unique textured paper. Numbered 16/100 and hand signed by the artist. 

Size: 18.7”W x 25.5”H.

Condition: Excellent condition with light creases in top centre which isnt visible due to textured paper and half a dozen very faint age spots.

About the Artist - Jef Friboulet

Jef Friboulet, born Émile Jean Jules Friboulet on November 11, 1919, in Fécamp, France, came from modest roots as the son of a Newfoundland fisherman and a mail carrier. His father was a Newfoundland fisherman and his mother was a teacher, and she was hospitalized just after her birth while her father was away in Newfoundland for long stretches, so he spent nearly three years at the fishermen's orphanage in Fécamp with his sisters. He showed an early gift for drawing, and after earning his school certificate in June 1931 he went to work, holding a series of jobs as a grocery boy, port employee, registration clerk, garage worker, and transport company employee, all while continuing to practice his drawing. 

His path into painting was shaped by military service. He enlisted in the air force in 1939, and in 1940 he was sent to Africa with the Bourgogne group, where he found himself with a great deal of free time and returned to drawing and painting. It was there that he picked up the name by which he'd become known: American forces nicknamed him "Jef" after the initials EJF marked on his luggage. He met the army's official painters Horcholl and Harris in Bamako, and his superiors, recognizing his talent, made him a photographer and painter for the armed forces, decorating barracks and mess halls with murals; his first exhibition followed in Bamako in 1942. Back in France, he first won recognition for a painting called "Le Jardinier" and had his first Paris exhibition in 1954, and the response from exhibitions and the press led him to leave his job as a driver to become a professional painter, opening a large workshop in Fécamp that welcomed many amateur and professional painters. Personal tragedy later shaped his art: his son Régis died in 1964, and Friboulet moved into a new, mystically and religiously inspired period of painting, exhibiting widely abroad, including in Israel, painting works for the churches of Fécamp and Yport, and mounting two exhibitions on the Bible. 

Entirely self-taught, Friboulet developed a distinctive expressionist style built on a fiery touch and a restrained color scheme, with pictorial and sculptural work that exalted the human figure with humility and kindness of soul, most often through Normandy landscapes and everyday scenes, frequently of Le Havre, rendered in a vivid palette that captured the atmosphere and light of his home region. Among his best known works are the paintings "La Japonaise" (1974) and "La Langouste," and the bronze sculpture "Le Violoncelliste." Late in life he settled in the remote, isolated village of Yport, where he found tranquility and founded an association in his studio to train young painters. Jef Friboulet died on May 13, 2003, in Yport, Normandy, leaving behind a body of work and a teaching legacy that his family and admirers continue to honor.