Manuel Leonardi Oil Painting of Hearth and Preparing the Evening Meal (1980's)

Celebrated French artist Manuel Leonardi was born in 1961. His paintings have been exhibited in Paris and around the world. His first experience with art was drawing as a kid and he held an interest in comic books. Leonardi works mainly with oil paint, creating impressionist style nude portraits and city street scenes, although his earlier works included many "plein aire” landscapes and subjects related to nature.

Leonardi began his painting career in the late 1980's. And, as he explains it:

"... Quickly and by chance, a fairly important prize in Monaco encouraged me from all points of view...

Since then I have explored painting outdoors on the motif for a long time, mainly in town, it was what I admired the most at the beginning, these painters from outside. How to immerse yourself and restore atmospheres, feelings of places...

I always paint people too, but I have devoted myself to it much more in recent years. The body and the skin, a whole other galaxy than the landscape, (represent) for me a lot more work, and discoveries for a thousand years."

He concludes: "In recent years, I have devoted myself a lot to the female body. I take advantage of the Internet to sell all over the world."

He states that his Influences "include Buffet, Marquet, Hopper, Freud, Liuxiaodong, Caravaggio, Manet, Sargent, and Sorolla."

He began his art education in 1987 at the Ateliers Paris, France and continues his affiliation with that institution.

This charming oil painting of meal preparation in an imagined French cottage somewhere in the past demonstrates Leonardi's fondness for sentimental memories and the use of bright colors in areas like the hearth.

The painting is large and signed by the artist. It comes in a signed frame with a plaque reading "Leonardi." It is about 3 feet wide and 30 inches tall and weighs about 8 lbs.