French male painters

Roger Chastel (Édouard Henri Roger Chastel; 25 March 1897 in Paris – 12 July 1981 in Saint-Germain-en-Laye.) was a French painter from l'École de Paris with their work inside le limit of abstract art.

Robert Antral (Châlons-en-Champagne July 13, 1895 – Paris June 7, 1939) was a French painter and printmaker, mainly of etchings. He won the Prix Blumenthal in 1926 and the Croix de Guerre for his bravery in World War I.

Georges de Feure (real name Georges Joseph van Sluijters, 6 September 1868 – 26 November 1943) was a French painter, theatrical designer, and industrial art designer in the symbolism and Art Nouveau styles.
De Feure was born in Paris. His father was an affluent Dutch architect, and his mother was Belgian. De Feure had two sons, Jean Corneille and Pierre Louis, in the early 1890s with his mistress Pauline Domec and a daughter with his first wife Marguerite Guibert (married 7 July 1897).
In 1886, de Feure was one of the eleven students admitted at the Rijksacademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, which he did however leave very quickly for Paris since he felt that formal academic training had nothing to offer him. Being of very independent nature, de Feure never again took up formal artistic studies, and forged his own independent path. He was however influenced by Jules Chéret in his posters for the café concert but most likely was never his pupil and became the key designer of Siegfried Bing for L'Art Nouveau.
He showed work in the Exposition Universelle de Paris exhibition in 1900. He designed furniture, worked for newspapers, created theater designs for Le Chat Noir cabaret and posters. In August 1901, de Feure was nominated Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur for his contribution to the decorative arts. He died in poverty at the age of 75 years in Paris.

Robert Combas (born 25 May 1957, Lyon) is a French painter and sculptor. He lives and works in Paris.
He is widely recognized as a progenitor of the figuration libre movement that began in Paris around 1980 as a reaction to the art establishment in general and minimalism and conceptual art in particular.
Figuration libre is often regarded as having roots in Fauvism and Expressionism and is linked to contemporary movements such as Bad Painting and Neo-expressionism. It draws on pop cultural influences such as graffiti, cartoons and rock music in an attempt to produce a more varied, direct and honest reflection of contemporary society, often satirizing or critiquing its excesses.
Combas’ own work has always been strongly rooted in depictions of the human figure. The figures are often in wild, violent or orgiastic settings. Usually on large, often unstretched canvases, Combas crowds his flat pictorial space with a teeming proliferation of bodies, street poetry and designs reminiscent of the compulsive patterning in much folk and outsider art. He creates hectic narratives of war, crime, sex, celebration and transgression—in short, every phase that makes up the constant flux of modern life. In recent years a strong autobiographical strain has been evident in his work, which was present only on a subliminal level, if at all, in the earlier work.
Combas often seems to be offering the work as critique—of both the art establishment and society at large. The recent painting “I am greedy man” features a densely layered jostle of bodies, with the foreground dominated by transparent line figures, the background occupied by monochromatic figures and the middle ground reserved for two more fully realized figures, one in a business suit and the other muscular and shirtless. They dance in a swirl of text which seems to have no discernible beginning or end but which may be read as: “I am greedy man/ Please shout me babe/ Soul serenade is a lot of pussy/ Pussy gone on the Eiffel Tower/ My Eiffel Tower is long and large.” The lampoon of a society where all are anonymous except in the individual recognition of need and gratification is typical of Combas’ work throughout his career.
While Combas’ works often seem to carry an element of shock or confrontation, he insists the images are meant to engage the viewer, and their execution in vibrant color and bold, unfettered line communicate a spirit of proletarian camaraderie that offsets the tendency to overwhelm, in the larger works especially.
In a biographical note on Robert Combas’ official website the artist asserts his aim is to

“provoke, that is, to trigger a reaction in the spectator only to ‘invite’ him, beckoning him in and whispering in his ear ‘come over and talk to me, I want to tell you about the stupidity, violence, beauty, love, hatred, seriousness and fun, the logic and senselessness that pervade our day-to-day lives’ ”.

Jean Joseph Vaudechamp (1790–1866) was a French painter born in Rambervillers, Vosges. He was a pupil of Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson.

Louis Welden Hawkins (1849–1910) was a Symbolist painter. He was born of English parents, later taking French nationality.

Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel (18 October 1850 – 16 March 1913) was a French painter and illustrator best known for his watercolours for children's books. He was a major figure in nineteenth-century children's book illustration.

Philippe Parrot (born 13 May 1831 in Excideuil, died 1894) was a French painter. A street in Périgueux is named after him.

Henri Cueco (19 October 1929 – 13 March 2017) was a French painter, essayist, novelist and radio personality. As a self-taught painter, his work was exhibited internationally. He was the author of several books, including collections of essays and novels. He was also a contributor to France Culture. A communist-turned-libertarian, he was a co-founder of Coopérative des Malassis, an anti-consumerist artists' collective. He was best known for The Red Men, a series of figurative paintings depicting aspects of the Cold War like the May 1968 events, the Vietnam War and Red Scare, and his 150 still lifes, or "portraits," of potatoes.

Édouard-Henri Avril (21 May 1849 – 28 July 1928) was a French painter and commercial artist. Under the pseudonym Paul Avril, he was an illustrator of erotic literature. He collaborated with influential people like Octave Uzanne, Henry Spencer Ashbee, and Friedrich Karl Forberg.Avril was a soldier before starting his career in art; he was awarded with the Legion of Honour for his actions in the Franco-Prussian War.