Monique CRAS (1910-2007) - Lot 116

Lot n° 116
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Estimation :
150 - 250 EUR
Monique CRAS (1910-2007) - Lot 116
Monique CRAS (1910-2007) Burkina Faso, the ritual of the ancestors in Gaoua Ink and watercolor on paper mounted on cardboard with folding mat. Signed and located lower right. Dimensions : 34,5x26,5 cm (Old accident and pinholes) Emblematic figure of the traveling painter, Monique Cras is the daughter of Admiral Jean Cras, surgeon and composer. She was a student of Paul-Albert Laurens and Lucien Simon at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris from 1932 to 1937. After obtaining a state scholarship in 1937, she made a first visit to North Africa, traveling through the Maghreb where she returned in 1942. In 1938, a study trip led her to Senegal, Mauritania, Mali, Niger and Guinea. Monique Cras considers the discovery as a real travel diary that she draws and paints as much as she writes without ever publishing it: "The people of the A.O.F. colonies were not interested in painting. It was a mundane life. I ran away from it and preferred the bush" she declared. Traveling close to the tribes, braving the harsh climates as well as epidemics or rebellions, Monique Cras travelled more than 35,000 kilometers at her own risk and peril. She succeeded in capturing faces and landscapes in a lively, intense and colorful style that she successfully exhibited in 1939 at the Salon de la Société coloniale des Artistes français. Between 1939 and 1940, she stayed in Spain and Spanish Morocco as a boarder at the Casa Velasquez. In 1952, Monique Cras created monumental decorations for the centenary of New Caledonia, as well as a large panel dedicated to Niger for Expo 58 in Brussels.
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