Simon Bussy: l’Esprit du Trait du Zoo a la Gentry (1996)

A student of Gustave Moreau, classmate, and friend of Matisse, Simon Bussy established privileged connections with the intellectual elite of his time, both French (the NRF: André Gide, Paul Valéry, Roger Martin du Gard) and English (the Bloomsbury group around Virginia Woolf).

As a painter, he innovated in the pastel technique, developing a velvety and shimmering texture, successfully adopting it for his portraits, often tinged with humor, as well as for his landscapes, constructed with subtlety and harmony.

But his great originality lies in the creation of an exotic and magical bestiary, a kind of gallery of “animal portraits,” where Bussy fully reveals his unique talent as an animal artist.

Nearly one hundred and thirty works from public and private collections, both French and foreign, are gathered in this book, the first work of such importance dedicated to Simon Bussy.