Born 20 June 1901, in Carmaux (Tarn); died 29 January 1977, in Epigneul (Yonne).

While working as a draughtsman in Carmaux, Jean Jules Louis Cavaillès met 'Père Artigue' (an erstwhile pupil of Jean-Paul Laurens and a friend of Henri Martin) who urged Cavaillès to travel to Paris to study art. Cavaillès duly obliged, enrolling in 1925 at the Académie Julian, where he studied under Pierre and Paul Albert Laurens. Cavaillès went on to exhibit in Paris, notably at the Salon des Artistes Français (as of 1928), at the Salon des Indépendants and at the Salon d'Automne, all the while running a corner grocery shop to help make ends meet. He was invited to the Salon des Tuileries and commissioned in 1936 to reconvene the 14th Group of the Artists of our Age ( Artistes de ce temps) for an exhibition at the Petit-Palais. That same year, Cavaillès was awarded a Blumenthal scholarship and, the following year (1937), was commissioned to decorate the Languedoc Pavilion at the Exposition Universelle.

Cavaillès' work is characterised by the juxtaposition of blocks of pure colour in a manner that can best be described as 'toned-down' Fauvism - a style espoused by many artists during the inter-war years - where intensity and innovation are essentially replaced by a straightforward joie de vivre. He exhibited in the company of artists who belong to the loosely-termed Poetic Reality movement.

Museum and Gallery Holdings

Paris (MAM): Still-life; Interior; Window in Honfleur