Bombois, Camille

(1883-1970)

   painter

   Born in venarey-les-Laumes, Camille Bombois, who had worked as a farmhand, dockworker typographer, and itinerant entertainer, was one of that generation of painters, like henri rousseau ("le Douanier"), who had raised painting from the usual criterion of simple reproduction to another view of reality. In 1922 in Paris, when he exhibited his paintings at the Foire aux croûtes de Montmartre, his talent was recognized by the critic Wilhelm uhde, who bought an important part of his work. Beginning in 1925, Bombois supported himself by painting landscapes, nudes, and circus characters (on luminous colored surfaces) that were also comments on various aspects of daily life (Le Pont du Chablis, 1923; Nature morte au homard, 1932). In his paintings, the stiffness of the personages, in frontal positions, in which the simplified shapes are often cut short by a dark bottom, at times evoke the surrealist style and indicate a certain detachment of the artist from his subject.