Vintage Original 1950s/60s Oleograph on Canvas Titled "Reverie" - Marcel Dyf (1899–1985) - signed bottom right hand corner.

Canvas - 61cm x 51cm

Frame - 67cm x 57cm 

'Reverie' is arguably the rarer of a part of a series of young girls that Marcel Dyf had a great fondness painting, in which this is perhaps one of the most seductive of the girls he had painted. 

It has been reproduced in various sizes and printed matter and since this original was produced, others that can appear the same and the same size are adhered to a cheap cardboard backing.

 

In very good condition, and one of the most expensive of the type of reproductions that were made in the 1950s, large in size 61cm x 51cm, and an "Oleograph", a heavy print form of lithograph made to appear as an 'oil on canvas'. 

Well stretched canvas with original wooden blocks .   The piece is set back in its white painted 4.5cm wide wooden frame (that is showing some signs of age). 

There's a very same copy being sold on eBay for £4,000 - that's £3,600, more than ours and hope we're not under selling it by that much! 

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/334043594438?hash=item4dc68cbec6:g:bR8AAOSweR9fr74J

Good Luck - Happy Bidding - Beautiful Talking Point Piece that will look cool as f in the right home. 

Early life

Marcel Dyf was born Marcel Dreyfus on 7 October 1899 in Paris.[1][2][3] He grew up in Normandy, in the towns of Ault, Deauville and Trouville.[2] He started a career as an engineer but soon decided to become a painter.[3] In 1922, he moved to Arles, where he was trained as a painter and set up a studio.[1][3]

Career

He painted frescoes in the city halls of Saint-Martin-de-Crau and Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer.[2] He also painted frescoes in the Museon Arlaten and in the dining hall of the Collège Ampère, both of which are in Arles.[2] He also designed windows inside the Église Saint-Louis in Marseille.[2]

In 1935, he moved to Maximilien Luce's old studio on the Avenue du Maine in Paris.[2] By 1940, because of the German invasion of France during the Second World War, he returned to Arles.[2] He quickly joined the French Resistance in Corrèze and the Dordogne.[2][3] He later moved back to Paris and finally moved in Saint-Paul-de-Vence.[1][2] However, in the 1950s, he started wintering in Paris and summering in Cannes, where he attracted the attention of American art collectors.[2]

His work was exhibited and sold at the Petrides Gallery, the Salon d’Automne, the Salon des Tuileries and the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris as well as galleries in Cannes, Nice, Marseille and Strasbourg.[2] Overseas, it was exhibited at the Frost & Reed Gallery in London.[1]

Personal life

In 1954, he married Claudine Godat in Cannes, when she was nineteen years old.[1][3] The Dyfs purchased a sixteenth-century hunting lodge in Bois-d'Arcy near Versailles, and it became their primary residence.[2] They also summered in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence and Eygalières.[2]

He died on 15 September 1985 in Bois-d'Arcy.[1][3]