L'Elephant

Simon Bussy (1870 - 1954). From studying at the drawing school in Dole he went to Gustave Moreau’s studio in École des Beaux-Arts Paris, where he met and became friends with Henri Matisse. In 1901 he visited London where he came into contact with members of some of the English artistic groups, especially the Bloomsbury Group. There he met Dorothy Strachey whom he married in 1903. They brought a house in the south of France which became a meeting place for both French and English artists writers and intellectuals. Their visitors included Lytton Strachey, Duncan Grant, Roger Fry, Vanessa Bell, Mark Gertler, Henri Matisse and George Rouault. At that time, he was painting mostly portraits and pastel landscape but his later work devotes itself to animals, especially birds, reptiles and fish which he observed and studied at London Zoo.