In 1886 the French Impressionists held their last group exhibition in Paris. Great innovators, they had ventured out-of-doors to faithfully capture on canvas the fleeting optical effects of light and atmosphere.

By 1886, the younger artists-the Post-impressionists - had grown impatient with the naturalism of their predecessors. Although these mavericks must have appreciated the great strides made by the Impressionists, they sought more than to simply record visible nature, and began to paint based on inspirations of the mind’s eye. Even Monet, the father of Impressionism, developed a more abstract style in his late career (water lilies, haystacks).

Although the Post-Impressionists were not bound together by a single style or aim as the Impressionists had been, they shared a common quest for newness. They sought to liberate vivid color, to explore graphic/schematic composition, to reintroduce solidity and to allow work of art to follow spontaneous, internal laws of imagination. They wanted art to stand on its own merit - on its "artfulness" and formal strengths - not on its naturalness, or realism. These were not "non-representational" painters - here you will find sunlit fields and sparking rivers too -they simply wanted to paint nature in a manner "true" to the paintings themselves, not necessarily true to the scenery. They wanted to paint as active creators, not as mere, faithful observers.

English critic Roger Fry first used the term "Post-Impressionist" when he curated a landmark show of French paintings done in the period after Impressionism (London 1910). Pioneering this new period were grand Masters (grand maitres) Van Gogh, Gauguin, Cezanne, et al. Some years later, celebrated smaller masters (petits maitres) would also make important contributions to this fertile time, which many now regard as the beginning of modern art.

The Post-Impressionists explored and elaborated the new styles and approaches of their time with brilliance. They were honored with one-man shows at the greatest French galleries and salons. Influential critics and writers applauded them. They became documented in art history. Recently, some have been honored with retrospectives at regional museums in the United States and France.

Today, with Post-Impressionist masterpieces routinely selling for tens of millions of dollars, dealers, collectors and auctioneers are vividly searching the Post-Impressionist period for new areas of value and interest. Aware of this art-world tide, we have become one of the country’s dealers of les petits maitres of French Post-Impressionism.

With Van Goghs today selling for up to $80 million, it is no surprise that the corresponding smaller masters of Post-Impressionism are now enjoying, albeit posthumously, an ascent all their own.

Might it be possible to stand before an image such as "Arbre en Fleurs" and remain untouched by joy? Probably not. The quiet surprise of pink and fuchsia flaming amid azure and emerald; verdant forms that solidify from abstraction to recognizable blossoms; shrubbery in brushstrokes so passionate that Van Gogh springs to mind; these are chords hearkening to even the most torpid observer.

Beatrice Carebul’s paintings sing the praises of the goddess Earth; intoxicating, voluptuous, pagan. The flora of a rock-studded water cove becomes the subject of unrestrained pleasure "Rochers Rouges". Even where man has intervened building bridges, arbors and towers, his creations participate in the organic surge of nature. Note the frond-like arches of "Jardin D’Interieur" and the vertiginous peaks of rooftops against the mountains of "Vue des Alpes". The myriad things in Carebul’s world appear everywhere to sprout, flourish and thrive "Les Grands Arbres" and "Champ Fleuri."

If her works looks back upon Van Gogh, it also augurs the future masters Diebenkorn and Thiebaud in its audacious color harmonics and formal organization. She was one of a number of successful women artists who emerged early in this century, and whose contributions, so long neglected, are gradually being acknowledged. Carebul’s reputation, however, has yet to catch up to artists whose talents do not begin to eclipse hers. Marie Laurecin, for example, catapulted to fame through her connection with Guillaume Apollinaire and Picasso and because of her designs for the theatre and ballet. In fact, both women were born a few months apart in 1883, and shared similar backgrounds and training in the decorative arts. Carebul studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and at the Ecole des Arts Decoratifs before launching her career at the prestigious Salon National des Beaux-arts immediately following the First World War. Laurecin studied porcelain painting at the Sevres factory and in 1907, exhibited at the Salon des Independants where, in the twenties, Beatrice would join her.

Carebul’s landscapes were exceptional, for most of her predecessors (Berthe Morisot, b. 1841, Mary Cassatt, b. 1844, Suzanne Valadon, b. 1867, and especially Marie Laurencin), focused on the human figure. Scenes of mothers and children, particularly feminine viewpoints, were the staple of women artists of the period. Sonia Delauney (b. 1884) and the German Gabriele Munter (b. 1877) both tended toward landscapes as well, the former working out the tenets of Orphic Cubism with her husband Robert, and the latter inspired by the expressionism of her lover Wassily Kandinsky.

Carebul’s affinity was with the Fauves, or "Wild Beasts", especially with the likes of Andre Derain. Three years older than Beatrice, he enjoyed, as she did, frequenting the same cafes and riverbanks that had stimulated the Impressionist painters a generation earlier.

When critics began to notice the work of Carebul, sometimes in shows or in the windows of modest art dealers, they remarked on her bold use of color. An appreciation for the Fauvist palette was then being shared by Vlaminck and Marquet, as well as by Derian and the increasingly popular Matisse.

Her paintings were elected for exhibit at the Salon des Independants from 1920 to 1931, and she achieved success at the Devanbez Gallery in Paris, there selling a number of pieces. From 1935 to 1940, she also took part at the Salon d’Automne, a founding member of the Salon des Tuileries admired her paintings and convinced her to display them at the salon, which she did from 1930 to 1939.

Beatrice Carebul looked at the world and responded with color, as her ruby and opal blossoms shimmer along a garden path "Jardin en Fleurs", and her emerald cypresses launch into unclouded sky "Paysage Aux Cypres". Gertrude Stein reported that Picasso was fond of declaring, "All blue is sacred". So it was for Carebul, whose blue often takes on the luster of lapis lazuli, whether in the icy shadows of snow-covered hills "Le Mont D’Arbois" or in a stretch of warm Mediterranean Sea "La Cote D’Azur."

Gemstone analogies are a cliché of art criticism, and yet, in the case of Beatrice Carebul, the metaphor is for once apt. After her death in 1954, a discerning collector meticulously assembled her work. Recently, through the release of these pieces, these jewels of Post-Impressionism have a chance of being discovered anew.