Maurice Le Scouëzec

His son Gwenc’hlan Le Scouëz has written a biography of his father.^[1]

Born in Le Mans, Maurice Le Scouëzec's father was a Breton and worked as an inspector for the "Chemins de fer de l'Ouest". Maurice Le Scouëzec frequented the artist's quarter in Paris of Montparnasse and then set off on various voyages around the world on tall ships. He finally returned to France and died in Douarnenez. In an eventful life he had been a sailor, soldier, globe-trotter/adventurer and a painter and worked with painters such as Pablo Picasso and Amedeo Modigliani.

During his stays in the Sudan and Madagascar he completed many evocative and realistic paintings depicting life in African villages. He exhibited his canvases at the ""Salon d’automne". He completed many paintings depicting Brittany.^[2]

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  1918 self-portrait in Algerian dress.
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  Maurice Le Scouëzec. Port rouge in Madagascar
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  Maurice Le Scouëzec. A canoe In Madagascar
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  Maurice Le Scouëzec. A "cactus candélalabre" at Tuléar in Madagascar.

In 1932, Le Scouëzec was commissioned to paint nine frescoes for the chapel Saint-Roch at Pont-d'Ouilly. These depicted scenes from the saint's life. Eight frescoes adorned the chapel's walls and depicted the saint's birth, his refusal of meat on a Friday, the saint distributing toys, the saint leaving for Rome on a pilgrimage, his reception at Aquapendente, the saint sick in a forest, the saint curing the victims of the plague and then in prison. A ninth fresco is located behind the altar and depicts Saint Roch et les Anges. The frescoes on the chapel's lateral walls were restored by the Polish artist Marek Sobczyk between 1982-1984, and in 2003 Jean Bonavita worked on restoring the frescoes on the south wall.^[3]