Cornfield in the Valley of Saint-Jean-du-Doigt (Brittany)

Maxime Maufra (1861-1918), friend and fervent defender of Paul Gauguin, preferentially painted coastal landscapes and seascapes. He was trained in the tradition of French landscape painting and subsequently converted to Impressionism. Influenced by Gauguin and the painters of Pont-Aven, Maufra adopted a more synthetic and stylised art in the 1890s. In his later landscapes, he again used a sketchy and dynamic touch, sometimes related to that of Van Gogh. Maufra's work was exhibited at the Salons of La Libre Esthétique in Brussels for several years in succession. His name is also linked to Le Bateau-Lavoir in Montmartre, Paris. He stayed there for barely two years, from 1892 to 1894, but he was the first painter to take up residence in the building that would later become so famous, partly thanks to Picasso.