Delivery service: Colissimo Recommandé Circa 1940 Bouquet of flowers Recommended by the lawyer Mousset, Balande will discover the painting by Abbé Alfred Couturaud, pupil of the painter Henri Harpignies (1819-1916). It will be an essential meeting in his life because he will finally discover his way. In 1900, he moved to Paris and entered the competition for the School of Decorative Arts where he met the painter Harpignies. For several years, Balande exercised various low-paid jobs, and he took advantage of his free time to visit the museums of the capital and thus complete his artistic education. In March 1901, he passed his competition at the School of Decorative Arts. He did his military service as a nurse and was incorporated in Bordeaux, then in La Rochelle and then in Paris. Thanks to the liberal regime, he was able to continue his artistic exploration by taking painting lessons. He was discharged following a lung disease. During his convalescence, he met Claire Roux who became his wife. She accompanied him to Paris. They had a son, Gaston Paul André Balande, who followed in his father's footsteps and became an Artist Painter (in order for the paintings of the latter to be recognized for his talent alone, he signed them under the name of Delauzières; he died following wounds received during a bombing in 1941 in Mantes). Gaston Balande continued his small jobs and worked in the workshops of Fernand Cormon, Jean-Paul Laurens and Rupert Bunny, which allowed him to refine his training. In 1903, during an exhibition at the Salon of French Artists, he won the Edouard Le Maitre prize for his painting "Au Quai d'Orsay in winter". He finally set up his own studio in Etaples (Pas-de-Calais), where he painted during his holidays. In 1906 he obtained state encouragement and in 1907 he received the Marie Bashkirtseff Prize. In 1912, thanks to a prize from the Institute with a scholarship, he undertook trips abroad, notably to Belgium, Holland and Spain where he painted "The asylum for the elderly in Toledo" (visible in the room of the Municipal Council of the town hall of Saujon), and in Italy. He was inspired by his discoveries to permeate his painting. Back in Paris, he volunteered to participate in artistic missions to the Armed Forces and was sent to Neuport (Belgium) and Verdun. The Manufacture des Gobelins recognized his artistic talent and asked him to create a tapestry. He worked as a professor at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts for summer courses for American students in Fontainebleau for 13 years. From 1931 to 1954, he was curator of Fine Arts in La Rochelle. In 1939, on returning from his stay in Greece and faced with the outbreak of hostilities, he found himself in Lauzières. Overwhelmed by the death of his son, he only found relief from his pain in his work. We owe him the “Paquebot” style for the decoration of the “Normandie” and “De Grasse” liners. Sensitized by the industrial and economic birth of the country, Balande drew inspiration from it to paint. He died in Paris on April 8, 1971, a year after his wife. He rests in the cemetery of Nieul sur Mer with his family.