The Pont-Aven Spinner

Abram was born in Vesoul and studied under Gerome at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1887 he moved to Douarnenez, where he painted and gave drawing lessons. As a painter of Breton portraits and landscapes, he exhibited at the Salons of the Societe des Artistes Francais. Abram was one of those artists attracted to Breton “exoticism”, and his realistic paintings, rendering every detail of costume and furniture, illustrate the romantic vision of Brittany held by academic painters exhibiting in the official Paris Salon. This canvas, in which a woman poses in a room, is a depiction of daily life at the time. The painter’s eye is that of an ethnologist, taking note of each picturesque element and reproducing it faithfully in a natural style