Charles Filiger

The son of a wallpaper manufacturer in Mulhouse, Filiger first studied decorative arts before specializing in painting at the Académie Colarossi in Paris.

He arrived in Pont-Aven in 1888 and went on to Le Pouldu staying at the Buvette de la Plage where Gauguin was also a guest.

Other artists who joined the colony in the late 1880s and early 1890s included Paul Sérusier, Charles Laval, Meijer de Haan, Armand Séguin, Henry Moret and Émile Jourdan.

Nor did Émile Bernard see him as a disciple of Gauguin, characterizing him as a mixture of Byzantine and Breton popular art forms.

[1] Jan Verkade, who met him in Le Pouldu commented: "He produced very little but I have seen some very beautiful gouaches of his; they are mainly religious paintings, reminiscent of Byzantine and primitive Italian works, but quite personal and quite modern.