Lionel Floch (1895 - 1972)

He is a quasi-autodidact, trained from secondary school onwards with local artists, including the "master" Théophile Deyrolles. Being a good student, Lionel Floch chose to make a career in the administration as a registrar, without ever stopping painting. He was soon transferred to Pont-Croix, where a group of very active artists had formed the Pont-Croix School, bringing together American, Belgian and regional painters. In 1930, they were joined by Jean Moulin, then sub-prefect of Châteaulin and an engraver in his spare time, but also by the composer Van Parys and the writer Max Jacob. In the fifties he was successively transferred to Grasse and Chinon, then retired to Quimper in 1958 where he ended his life.

Lionel Floch produced and sold many of his works. He created large painted decorations for: Senator Astor in his manor house in Kérazan, for the Pascal brothers' hotel in Quimper, for the car showroom of the Renault garage in Quimper. He also tried his hand at ceramics at the Henriot faience factory from the end of the 1930s, but also at drawing and woodcuts.

Follower and inventive: Lionel Floch owes these two characteristics to his training outside the academic curriculum. He is in the verist lineage of Simon or Lemordant, but he proposes a personal style in phase with the artistic landscape of Brittany, at the time of its modernisation.