ANDRE DUNOYER DE SEGONZAC

Biography

André Dunoyer de Segonzac was born in Boussy-Saint-Antoine (Essonne) July 7, 1884. After his schooling at high school Henri IV, as early as 1900, he attends classes at the National School of Fine Arts in Paris in free listener where he will befriend Charles Dufresne. In 1903, he enters the private studio of Luc-Olivier Merson. In 1907, he studies with Jean-Paul Laurens and attends the La Palette and Colarossi academies in Montparnasse. He meets Luc-Albert Moreau and Jean-Louis Boussingault with whom he shares a studio. His first drawings are published in 1908 in The Great Review and The Witness. Nearly indifferent to contemporary aesthetic revolutions, Dunoyer de Segonzac undertakes, with Jean-Louis Boussingault and Luc-Albert Moreau, to revive Gustave Courbet's realism by performing still lifes, nudes, landscapes, in a thick paste and masonry . In one of his letters to the painter Maurice Boitel, he wrote in the 1950s: "I have not forgotten the heroic period of the independents - when we were grouped around Paul Signac, the charming and valiant Maximilien Luce - in these barracks where the living and authentic Art was grouped outside the academic formulas - or literary and systematic tendencies - which were to lead to this abstract aesthetic of which the painting dies. "

"I have not forgotten the heroic period of the independents - when we were grouped around Paul Signac, the charming and valiant Maximilian Luce - in these barracks where the living and authentic Art was grouped outside the academic formulas - or tendencies literary and systematic - which were to lead to this abstract aesthetic of which the painting dies. "

In 1908, he begins exhibiting at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants, with Paul Signac and Maximilien Luce. He befriends Apollinaire, Max Jacob, Raoul Dufy and Vlaminck.

From this period, renting a house belonging to Signac, Dunoyer discovers the landscapes of Saint-Tropez, to which he will remain faithful and where he lived until the end of his life. He stays in Saint-Tropez only in the summer season. For the rest, he leads a real nomadic life, in search of the motive especially through the Île-de-France, the Grand Morin valley, Feucherolles, Chennevières-sur-Marne, Guyancourt, etc. "I also worked a lot on the banks of the Seine in Chatou, Bougival, Andrésy, Poissy and Triel that I particularly like, with its beautiful Gothic church that is reflected in the Seine and the high wooded hills that surround him", he will say.

" In 1910, he draws attention to himself, he is known in 1914. In 1920, he is famous, he will be at the top of the ladder until the fifties " (Michel Charzat, La Jeune peinture française)

In 1910, he knows fashion designer Paul Poiret and meets Max Jacob, Raoul Dufy and Vlaminck. From 1910 to 1914, he travels to Italy, Spain, North Africa, and is interested in sport and dance (drawings of Isadora Duncan's Russian Ballets, 1911, The Boxers1910). From 1914 to 1918, mobilized in the infantry, he makes the war hardly, before being assigned to camouflage. He performs many war drawings, valuable for their artistic and documentary value.

From 1919, he appears again in many exhibitions, including major Parisian salons. Nearly indifferent to contemporary aesthetic revolutions, Dunoyer de Segonzac undertakes, with Boussingault and Moreau, to revive Courbet's realism by performing still lifes, nudes, landscapes, in a thick and masonry paste. Enlisted in engraving by Jean Émile Laboureur, he makes nearly 1,600 brass plaques from 1919 to 1970. He was president of the Society of French painters-engravers.

In 1921, he meets Paul Valéry, Léon-Paul Fargue and Jean Cocteau. In 1928, he makes a trip to America where he met with great success. In 1930, he becomes friend with Derain. In 1933 he receiveds the Carnegie Foundation of Pittsburgh Award and in 1934 the Venice Biennale.

During the Occupation, in November 1941, he takes part in a "study trip" to Germany, organized by Arno Breker, accepting, like other artists of the most renowned, to visit the hotspots of German culture as well as artist workshops.

After the war, he is exhibited in the best galleries, in 1949-1950 at the Galerie Charpentier, in 1969 at the Galerie Vallotton, and in 1972 the Galerie Durand-Ruel.

" Segonzac embodied the stability of the painting and the excellence of the profession between the two wars, when he formed with Derain and Matisse the triad of masters of contemporary French painting " (Michel Charzat, La Jeune peinture française)

Dunoyer de Segonzac has made sets and costumes for the theater, illustrated many literary works (Carco, Dorgeles, Tristan Bernard, Paul Morand, Jules Romains, etc.). He has also published extensively, including his etchings. Realist artist, he is the heir of Le Nain, Courbet and Millet. An independent painter, he never adhered to any of the great aesthetic movements of the beginning of the century. His style reflects the need for a new chromatic sobriety and a great graphic rigor; his palette is limited to dark shades, "Spartan", dominated mainly by ochres, lands, dark reds.

Dunoyer de Segonzac is an excellent draftsman. His graphics are characterized by the extreme precision of the line and by a great conciseness of form: Isadora Duncan (1909). In 1912, he adopted the technique of the pen, which is better suited to the effectiveness of his line. Its main sources of inspiration are the landscapes of the Île-de-France and the Midi represented in winter, a season whose stripping is perfectly suited to the graphic conciseness and monochromatism of the artist.

Watercolor is for him a painting in itself. An initial drawing in ink governs the whole composition and dominates the color: Roquebrune (1946), series of the Massif des Maures (1938, 1939 and 1947). Only the oil painting betrays an influence of cubism in the exceptional will of organization of the composition. It should be noted, however, a party of geometry that tempers the sensation. He shows a strong preference for massive forms, for a compact matter, and gives more importance to values ​​than colors: The Canoeists (1914), Landscape in Saint-Tropez (1927), Still life with bread and wine (1936).

He is as an engraver and illustrator that he gives free rein to his sensibility: "My conception of engraving is quite similar to the one I have in drawing. It is a spontaneous and direct reaction to life, landscape, movement, light. The etching has been for me a complement of the drawing, it is the sister. His prints are incisive, expressive: a continuation of The Valley of Morin (1923), Beaches (1935), Tableau de la boxe (1921). Among his works as an illustrator, include the Cross of Wood Dorgelès (1921) and The Georgics of Virgil (1944-1947). A retrospective of his work as a painter and draftsman was presented in Paris in 1972 at the Galerie Durand-Ruel.

André Dunoyer de Segonzac died in Paris in 1974. He rests in St Tropez.

Awards and Recognition

1933: Carnegie Foundation of Pittsburgh Foundation Award

1934: prize of the Venice Biennale

1947: Member of the Royal Academy of London

1948: Associate member of the Royal Academy of Belgium

Exhibitions (selection)

1920: special exhibition, London

1938: Chicago

1939: London, Wildenstein Gallery

1949-1950: Charpentier Gallery, Paris - Basel

1951: Geneva Museum of Art and History

1959: Royal Academy of London

1969: Vallotton Gallery, Lausanne

1972: Durand-Ruel Gallery, Paris

Museums

The works by Dunoyer de Segonzac are present in the most prestigious museums of the world. Note the National Museum of Modern Art (Paris) where more than 70 works are listed (including thirty drawings). Among his emblematic works, we find oils on canvas such as Two nudes (ooc 1911), Bacchus (ooc 1933), Grand nude lying (ooc 1921), Lunch on the grass (1913), The bathers (1923), Nude lying with a black shoe (1922), The young ladies of the Marne (1923), and many others, as well as very beautiful watercolors such as The Gulf of Saint-Tropez in winter (1938), etc ... But also the Museum of Modern Art of the city of Paris with Lying Nude (hst 1919), Characters (hst 1920), Plowing in Provence (watercolor 1935), etc ... But also the Museum of Modern Art of New York, .. .

Auction results

The record we know of works by Dunoyer de Segonzac in public auction was set at Sotheby's on February 21, 1990 in London for a watercolor and pencil entitled The Village Church sold £ 70,000 GBP Hammer, £ 87,500 GBP Fee sale included. Amount discounted in May 2018: € 190,000 or $ 295,850 USD.

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