Marcel Dyf

Marcel Dyf (1899-1985)

Marcel Dyf was born Marcel Dreyfus on 7 October 1899 in Paris. He grew up in Normandy, in the towns of Ault, Deauville and Trouville. He started a career as an engineer but soon decided to become a painter. In 1922, he moved to Arles, where he was trained as a painter and set up a studio.

Dyf had little formal artistic training but owed much of his inspiration to the masters of the past such as Rembrandt, whom he particularly admired, Vermeer and Tiepolo. Whilst in Arles Dyf was commissioned to paint a number of large historical and decorative works, mostly frescoes, in the town halls of Saint Martin-de-Crau and Les Saintes Maries-de-la-Mer, in Arles, in the Museon Arlaten and in the dining hall of the Collège Ampère. He also designed windows for the church of Saint Louis in Marseille.