Maurice Busset

Winning a first prize of Fine Arts in Clermont-Ferrand, Maurice Busset won a scholarship to study in Paris. He worked in the studio of Gérome, where he integrated art deco in his work and learned woodcutting.

He later became an art teacher back in Clermont-Ferrand and was at the forefront of Auvergne regional art. During WWI he was a painter in the archives of military aviation. From 1929, he moved full time to a large studio in Clermont-Ferrand and became assistant curator at the City Museum. He also had a passion for archaeology and claimed to have discovered the true site of the Battle of Gergovie on the coast of Clermont-Ferrand, a theory still debated today.

All of Busset’s submitted works are probably oil paintings. Le saut en ski, also titled Chamonix pendant les JO de 1924, has a size of 48 x 62 cm. L’arrivée d’un hydravion could well be L’Arrivée - Lac de Cazeaux - Hydravion. The picture in oil on wood measuring 13.5 x 20.5 cm, however, was created as early as 1917.