Camille Bombois

Camille Bombois (3 February 1883 – 6 June 1970) was a French naïve painter especially noted for paintings of circus scenes, public parks and river landscapes, still lives, and female nudes. He is often associated with self-taught modern painting in France and was compared during his lifetime to Henri Rousseau, although his work was generally more grounded in observed experience than fantasy.

Early life Bombois was born in Venarey-les-Laumes in the Côte-d'Or, in humble circumstances. His childhood was spent living on a barge and attending a local school until the age of twelve, when he became a farm worker. His father worked as a boatman and later for the Paris–Lyon–Méditerranée railway. During his free time he drew and competed in wrestling competitions at local fairs. According to later accounts, he began sketching at around the age of sixteen, drawing scenes from the rural life around him. He became a champion local wrestler before joining a traveling circus as a strongman and wrestler. He first performed with Lucien Gay's circus and later joined the Minard-Caron circus.

Move to Paris and Early Career In 1907, Bombois fulfilled his dream of moving to Paris, where he married and worked as a railway laborer, eventually finding a night job at a newspaper printing plant handling heavy newsprint rolls. Before taking that position, he also worked as a laborer on the construction of the Paris Métro. Despite the exhausting nature of his job he painted from dawn to dusk, sleeping little. Later accounts describe him as having deliberately sought night work so that he could reserve daylight hours for painting, a routine he maintained for several years while developing his technique and style. He showed his paintings in sidewalk exhibitions, but his earliest paintings, revealing the influence of the old masters in their subdued use of color, attracted few buyers.

First World War and Artistic Breakthrough 1914 marked the beginning of four-and-a-half years of military service in World War I. Bombois spent much of it on the front line, earning three decorations for bravery. Later, he received distinctions for bravery at Chemin-Creux, Chemin-des-Dames, and again on the night of the armistice. Upon his return home, encouraged that his wife had succeeded in selling a number of his paintings in his absence, he resumed his routine of night labor and daytime painting. In 1922, his sidewalk displays in Montmartre began attracting the attention of collectors. The first public display of his work took place in an open-air exhibition near his home on the rue Caulaincourt, where the poet Noël Bureau was among the first to champion his paintings. The art dealer Wilhelm Uhde "discovered" him in 1924, and exhibited Bombois' work in the Galeries des Quatre Chemins in 1927. Other early supporters included Florent Fels, Madame Gregory, Mathot, Jacques Guenne, and the critic Maximilien Gauthier. In 1937, his works were shown in the exhibition "Maîtres populaires de la réalité" in Paris. His wife died before him, and the couple had no children.

In 2023, Bavarian town of Passau in Germany restituted a painting by Bombois that had been looted from Jewish collector Marcel Joseph Monteux, who was murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp on August 15, 1944. A memorial exhibition was organized by Perls Galleries later that year.

Collections and Legacy Bombois' works are on view in many public collections, notably the Musée Maillol in Paris and the Zander Collection in Cologne. He has been described as one of the major figures of twentieth-century French naïve painting, and later critics have pointed to the formal sophistication of works such as his nudes and interiors alongside the directness for which he became known.

Exhibitions Exhibition 01. André Bauchant | Camille Bombois | Séraphine Louis | Henri Rousseau | Louis Vivin. Zander Collection, Cologne (25. November 2023 – 24. April 2024) Welche Moderne? In- und Outsider der Avantgarde. Sprengel Museum Hannover, Hanover (6. May 2023 – 17. September 2023), Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, Chemnitz (22. October 2023 – 14. January 2024) Outliers and American Vanguard Art. National Gallery, Washington D.C. (28. January 2018 – 13. Mai 2018), High Museum of Art, Atlanta (24. June 2018 – 30. September 2018), Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (18. November 2018 – 18. March 2019) 27 Artists, 209 Works. Zander Collection, Bönnigheim (23. March – 28. August 2016) Der Schatten der Avantgarde. Rousseau und die vergessenen Maler. Folkwang Museum, Essen (2. October 2015 – 10. January 2016) Die Clowns des Camille Bombois. Museum Charlotte Zander, Bönnigheim (30. May 1999 – 24. October 1999) Die Kunst der Naiven. Themen und Beziehungen. Haus der Kunst, Munich (1. November 1974 – 12. January 1975), Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich (25. Januar 1975 – 31. März 1975) documenta. Kunst des XX. Jahrhunderts. Internationale Ausstellung, Museum Fridericianum, Kassel (16. July 1955 – 18. September 1955) Masters of Popular Painting. Modern Primitives of Europe and America. Museum of Modern Art, New York (27. April – 24. July 1938) Les Peintres du cœur sacré, Galerie des Quatres Chemins, Paris (8. June – 21. June 1928)