Colour creates forms through a series of nuances. My palette is my music; but I don’t have a technique, I have sensations. Things present themselves to me as coloured volumes that I try to organise on the surface of the canvas in such a way that they support and enhance one another in a general harmony that corresponds to my feeling.
Letter from Camoin to J.S. Salzar, February 1960
During his long career, spanning almost seventy years, Charles Camoin produced a prolific body of work based on a series of motifs, mainly devoted to Southern landscape. His pictorial research led him to explore different avenues, but he always remained faithful to a colourist approach to painting associated with plastic expressiveness. To date, around 2600 paintings by the artist have been identified.
In parallel, Camoin engaged in an intense drawing activity (sketches, studies, pen drawings, charcoal drawings, pen and ink drawings, watercolours, pastels). He considered drawings as preparatory works for his paintings as much as artworks in their own right (landscapes, portraits, nudes). His fluid and vigorous strokes point to an extremely lively, sometimes incisive style, through which he never stopped capturing his environment and relatives.
1898-1902
1903-1907
1908-1913
1912-1913
1914-1918
1919-1939
