Pierre Emile Gabriel Lelong (24 March 1908 – 29 June 1984) was a neo-Impressionist painter based in France, winner of the Grand Prix des Peintres Témoins de Leur Temps in 1972.
He is considered one of the postwar group of artists referred to as “La Nouvelle Ecole de Paris.”[1] Pierre Emile Lelong was born in 1908 in Neuilly-sur-Seine.
His father, Albert Lelong, was a military man from Alsace; his mother, Marie Odette Collot, came from a Parisian family.
[2] In the 1920s he took classes at the Atelier Julien in Paris, but stopped painting in his late teens and early twenties – the period during which he was required to complete his military service.
After finishing his tour of duty, he went to work for an insurance company, Mutualité Agricole, where he had a successful career and was able to travel during his vacations.
After at least one failed attempt at escape, he succeeded in 1942 and returned to France, where he turned his sketches into a book Une Vie de Camp, published in 1943.
During this period (1943–45), he worked on his painting technique, which had been interrupted by his earlier military service and professional career.
[8] During the late 1940s, he produced illustrations for various journals, including Cavalcade, Paysage, La Pensée Française, Lisez-moi, Champs-Elysées, Paris-Dimanche, and Fantasia.
[9] He spent most summers in the south of France, and created a large body of work depicting boats, beaches, bathers, and southern towns.
He received the Grand Prix of the Peintres Témoins de Leur Temps in 1973 after a successful exhibit at the Galerie Minet.
His last major exhibition was at the Galerie d’art de la Place Beauvau in 1980, a series of works depicting the city of Paris.
[12] Une vie de camp, preface by Henri Curtil, Presses Victor Michel, 1943.
Les cent nouvelles, special edition produced for the Cercle des Professeurs Bibliophiles de France, 1962.
Les Français, edition prepared for Peintres Témoins de Leur Temps, 1966.
L’Art d’Aimer, Ovid, translation by Pirault des Chaumes, Editions Roissard, 1979.