Théodore Rousseau
During the 1940s, without leaving Brittany, Sollier began to explore new genres and new places. He twice tried mythological painting, immediately winning the Prix James Bertrand for his "Hommage à Phidias" at the 1944 Salon. The following year he returned to this genre with "Naissance d’Aphrodite". This departure from his Breton repertoire was continued by landscapes from the Seine-et-Marne and Burgundy, with a deliberate detour to the village of Murols in Auvergne, which had witnessed whole colonies of landscape artists, from Théodore Rousseau to Victor Charreton. He died in 1966 in Paris, brush in hand.