Hugo Galerie is pleased to present Paris est une Fête, a solo exhibition featuring Fabienne Delacroix and her Parisian joie de vivre. The show is named for the French title of Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast, a collection of 1920s memories from when he was living in Paris among the Lost Generation. Like Hemingway’s, Delacroix’s France is a vision of the past—hers rooted in the rose-tinted revelry of the Belle Époque.

Painted merrymakers share the cobblestone streets with horse-drawn carriages under a skyline dotted with charcoal plumes. Cheerful figures mingle at cafés, fairs, at the water’s edge, and beneath the Eiffel Tower. Paris is verifiably the City of Light as her works nearly effervesce with its quintessential sparkle. The seasons may change from canvas to canvas, in one Notre Dame stands majestically under a fresh dusting of snow while in the next children play in a park’s summertime puddle, but what remains consistent is the air of celebration. Delacroix transports viewers to the Paris of her dreams. She evokes Hemingway’s sentiment when he wrote, “there is never any ending to Paris and the memory of each person who has lived in it differs from that of any other. We always returned to it no matter who we were or how it was changed or with what difficulties, or ease, it could be reached. Paris was always worth it…”

Delacroix is a gifted storyteller—she supplies all the details necessary and none that burden. The cityscape’s perspective is present without appearing geometric; painterly crowds are full of unique personalities that blend into a joyous collective; every snowflake is discernable yet not one contrived. Her works glow with life and light. She is categorized as a naïf painter, an artist whose fanciful style evidences felt emotional more than formal education. It would be fair to say Delacroix was educated by osmosis, as she grew up in the studio of her father, master naïf painter Michel Delacroix. She had her first exhibition at ten years old in California and has devoted herself to painting since 1996. She currently lives and works in Paris, and will attend the exhibition opening in New York City on December 8.