In the summer of 1917, André Lhote and his wife Marguerite spent their holidays at Piquey, in the Arcachon basin, in the company of Jean Cocteau. During this stay, the poet wrote "We walk naked in Texas landscapes. I fished a little and read a lot".

André Lhote and Jean Cocteau at Petit-Piquey, 1917 
Photographic print

In front of the hut that Lhote called his Indian cottage, we can see André Lhote on the left and Jean Cocteau on the right, who had just launched the tanning craze. "Have you ever heard of sunbathing? It's a charlatan on a golden coach. It chloroforms and rips out your memories. You become a brute, you take on the colour of the earth, the bark, the animals... Unfortunately, tan is a hidden Indian. It shows itself in the sun and gradually creeps back, just as it came. In Paris, you quickly find the tint of the buildings and the pale faces, but after these cures you retain a flair and a balance that are lost in the cities". (J. Cocteau) 

Grand-Piquey and Petit-Piquey are delightful little oyster-farming villages whose wild seaside sites have attracted many artists, including Diego Rivera, Jacques Lipchitz, Georges Auric, Jean and Valentine Hugo and others.

Pine forest in Piquey
Photo

André Lhote returned to Piquey many times during his life. In this gouache, Les Pins à Piquey (The Pines at Piquey), created in 1961, the artist focuses on the trees that punctuate the composition with their supple vertical lines in a highly personal color palette evoking a pure, idyllic, and exotic landscape.