My first commissions
Méheut encouraged me to go to Paris to study at the École des beaux-arts. I passed the entrance exam, but couldn't afford to live in Paris. And what I saw coming out of the studios there did not convince me that Paris was where I could resolve all my questions about style and structure, which were worrying me a great deal. I had a great many doubts at the time about what I was producing, and had a tendency to get lost in the details. I was having a hard time developing an interesting style.
After the end-of-year student show, I was called up for the STO (Service de travail obligatoire) to work in the German factories. An old country priest and art lover, Alphonse Morin, offered to hide me in his village of St-Melaine in exchange for some work he needed doing. He had plans for several paintings in the presbytery and the church–a ceiling with the Evangelists, a painting of the Virgin Mary, an altar and stations of the cross. I accepted the deal. He had a fine collection of sculptures and antique engravings, including an authentic Dürer! A retired professor of literature, he also had all the classics, from the Trojan War and Cyrano de Bergerac to Racine and Molière – a good opportunity for me to fill in the gaps in my literary knowledge! I split his firewood, pressed his wine for Mass and helped his handyman, a young orphan, with the gardening.
Mathurin Méheut arranged for me to be given the contract to do the illustrations for Roger Vercel's book on Du Guesclin to be published by Les Éditions Arc-en-ciel. I had to bicycle back and forth to Rennes, always being careful to take the back roads, to check some of the details at the municipal library. As it happened, I already had quite a few drawings I had done in Dinan and other places where Du Guesclin had spent time. I mailed my sketches to Méheut, who sent back his corrections and judicious comments. At the time, he was doing magnificent large paintings of the fauna of Brittany, from prehistory to modern times, for the Institut de géologie in Rennes. Though overwhelmed with work, he still managed to help me. With the work at the presbytery and the commissions. I was doing for my host, Rector Morin, I didn't do much sitting around.
