Camille Bombois  (French, 1883-1970) 

Camille Bombois (French, 1883–1970) was a painter associated with the Naïve group, and best known for his fairground scenes and nudes. In 1907, he moved to Paris and worked at a newspaper printing plant while painting in his spare time. After Bombois served in World War I and returned to Paris, he began exhibiting his work on the sidewalks of Montmartre. In 1924, Wilhelm Uhde, the German collector who represented Naïve painter Henri Emilien Rousseau (French, 1875–1933), exhibited Bombois’s work and established his reputation as a Naïve artist. While Rousseau was known for his fantastical subject matter, Bombois favored scenes of everyday life. His paintings of circus performances are characterized by contrasting, bold colors, while some of his work has a more subdued palette, including Baigneuses Surprises (1930), a painting of two, partially-obscured nudes wading through a dark river. His work is currently held in several museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Musée Maillol in Paris.