Note Type
Artist’s Intent NoteNote
Close friendships with Renoir and Claude Monet resulted in authoring biographies of each, as well as completing portraits of both artists (now at the Art Institute of Chicago). André split his time between Paris and an inherited family home in Laudun–l’Ardoise, located roughly seven miles from Bagnols-sur-Cèze. Surrounded by an ever-widening artistic circle, André spent half [a] year in the area painting family and friends inside the home or along its terrace, scenes from the nearby village, bouquets of flowers gathered from the garden, or passages from the surrounding countryside. Here, towering white and burgundy hollyhocks sway in the wind along a path leading past a wooded clearing. For André, flowers represented a fleeting elegance that could be best preserved by the record of painting.