Edouard Goerg

Two Young Spanish Girls, Oil on paper

1937-1938

Oil on canvas by Edouard Goerg (1893-1969), France, 1958. Life is always the same. Acquired in 2017 from the personal collection of Edouard Goerg. Measurements : with frame : 62.5x53.4 cm - 24.6x21 inches, without frame : 55x46 cm - 21.7x18.1 inches, format 10F. Signed "E.Goerg" (see photo). Preserved by the painter, then by his family since his death in 1969, this painting appeared in 2017. Entitled "Always life begins again", it is a crepuscular work. Testamentary one could say, so much the statement which is made there is definitive. The fact that he kept it until his death tends to consolidate this vision. Far from the empty looks and death faces of the rebellious era of sarcastic expressionism, the terrifying and compassionate testimony of the Spanish war, and the post-WWII flower women, we are dealing here with a a form of reasonable abdication, but honest. This idea that although everything changes, nothing changes. Changed times, actors, ideas, the same comedy occupies the society. Having given up the idea of ​​changing the latter, Goerg accepts the fact that the only alternative is to stay there or get lost. But stay afloat with his values, completely independent, whatever the cost is. This work is similar to La Vie Recommence of 1935, reproduced on page 54 of Gaston Diehl's book devoted to the painter (Éditions de Clermont, 1947). On the latter, the artist depicts his vision of life, from birth to death, made of hope, fear, cruelty, resignation and fatality. 23 years later, Toujours La Vie Recommence shows us the road traveled by the painter. It is no longer a matter of denunciation, but ultimately of acceptance of reality and the difficulty of staying there yourself. The admirer of Hieronymus Bosch gives us an inspired composition. The hand of God, the only expression of physical beauty in this work, comes down from heaven to give life. Symbolically, it holds an egg that dispenses the element from which the human protagonists find their birth, and in which they move and tangle more than they impose. Beautiful allegory of society. Four characters, two women and two men evolve in this societal marigot. The man in the foreground, ruddy face, evolves with ease. His body is supple, flexible, adaptable. The woman on the left observes him with admiration. Obviously, this man is in his place and causes rapture. The right man with massive shoulders and wrapped, shows a physical maladjustment to the activity he is doing. He struggles to stay afloat, his face expresses effort, even exhaustion. But he assumes. He does with what he has, with what he is. The other woman shows him the greatest indifference. What is not the case of the demonic archangel (recurrent in the works of Bosch) with the stunted body, who leads the dance and holds this character, we understand the painter, under his control as to have fun. As this character cannot change bodies, Goerg cannot change values. He does it with. Had he not said to the critic Roger Brielle: "Independents, sensitive and just men, that's what we must strive to stay in this world in disarray". Goerg will have come to narrative expressionism to give us a balance sheet allegory of his deep self and his condition. Édouard Goerg is one of the major artists of his generation. Coming from a Champagne family, he was born in Sidney, Australia, in 1893, during a professional stay of his father. After passing through London, he arrives in Paris at the age of seven. At twenty, between 1913 and 1914, he studieds painting at the Académie Ranson with Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier. He travels to Italy and India. Mobilized in 1914, he is sent to Artois, then to Argonne. From 1920, he exhibits at the Salon des Independants, then at the Salon d'Automne where he joins with Laboureur. At Berthe Weil, in 1924, he participates in the exhibitions of the Gromaire group, a prelude to a series of exhibitions in Paris (Berthe Weill, Bernheim Jeune), as in Brussels (Le Centaure). Goerg illustrates books including Table of the beyond by F.Boutet. In 1928, he meets Paul Guillaume who exhibits his works in Boston and the Art Institute of Chicago. He continues to show his works, satires of the bourgeois manners, at Bernheim Jeune, then at Lucie Krogh. In 1934, he travels to Belgium and Holland where he paints surrealist paintings that will be exhibited at Jeanne Castel. In 1935-1936, he meets Aragon, who opened the doors of the houses of the cultures created by the Association of Writers and Revolutionary Artists. The Spanish war and the Second World War mark it deeply. He must protect his daughter and his Jewish women against the pursuit of the Nazis. The latter will die by lack of care. In 1949, Goerg is appointed professor of Fine Arts and teaches at the Grande Chaumière. He is elected to the Academy of Fine Arts in 1965. He dies in 1969. " His satirical verve is that of a Toulouse-Lautrec of the Roaring Twenties. Goerg instigates the world from which he comes, his ceremonial, morgue and the falsity of important people " (Michel Charzat, La jeune peinture française) In the paintings of his early period he attacks the morality of post-war bourgeois society, and in that sense was similar to expressionist painters like Georg Grosz. The major works of this period are: Pirate (1922); Gourmand (1923); Bar (1923); Marriage (1924); Window (1924); Don Quixote (1925); and Good fortune (1925). He travels extensively, and in 1935 visits the museums of Holland, where he is deeply influenced by the works of Hieronymus Bosch and Bruegel. He then directs a series of paintings on the theme of the tragedy of the human condition, under the generic title: "eThis is how the world turns under the eye of the police". After the Second World War, he savs his vitriolic commentary for his etchings, and in his paintings ceased to criticize real life and instead celebrated the evil charms of the flower-girls. He illustrates many books, including: Tales of Hoffmann, Picture of the Beyond by Frederick Boutet, Knock by Jules Romains, The Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire, The Book of Job...

Oil on canvas by Vicente CRISTELLYS (1898-1970), School of Paris, late 1950s. "Lolo", portrait of Gina Lollobrigida in Notre-Dame de Paris (film)...

Oil on canvas by Pere Creixams Pico (1893-1965), School of Paris, ca.1920. Beautiful Spanish woman. Provenance: Charpentier Gallery, 76 rue du Faubour...

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Oil on canvas by Paul Collomb (1921-2010), France, 1960s. The beautiful view. Measurements : with frame: 54.5x41.2 cm - 21.5x16.2 inches, without frame: 46x33 cm - 18.1x13 inches, format 8P. Signed "p.collomb" and titled on the back (see photos). In its golden frame with gold leaf. Paul Collomb favours us with a moving view of Paris. Surely summer in the late afternoon as seem to indicate the vegetation, the pink clouds of a declining sun and the warm tones of the foreground. The view is taken from Boulevard Henri IV on the Sully bridge. In the foreground, the Marie Bridge. Then, the Louis-Philippe bridge and the Arcole bridge. In the distance, the Pont Neuf. On the right is the right bank of the Seine where we distinguish the City Hall. On the left, the beginning of Saint-Louis Island. Then clearly appear the dome of the Invalides and the Eiffel Tower which proudly dominate this poetic panorama. About Paul Collomb : Paul Collomb was born October 8, 1921 in Ain Oyonnax. He studies drawing in Paris while taking classes at the School of Applied Arts. After the Liberation, he enters the Beaux-Arts in Paris, Atelier Souverbie, works and lives with his wife at "La Ruche" where he found a studio. He travels to Tunisia. At the same time, he works in the studio and in 1948 at the Salon of the under Thirty years old, where he exposes the Woman with the lamp. His painting, which had hitherto been marked by the fascination exercised over him by Braque and Picasso grows away because Paul Collomb realizes the danger of these too strong influences and, to maintain his independence, undertakes to return to a direct study of nature, that is, to the work on the subject. In 1950, he presents a Nude at the Salon of the Young Painting and Nudes at the Salon des Independants. He competes for the Prix de Rome and gets the First Second Grand Prix. In 1951, he continued his collaboration at the Salon of the Young Painting, he is part of the Committee, won the Prix Fénéon, Casa Velasquez Prize. He then stays in Toledo, Salamanca and, in June, exhibits a set of works in Madrid. He returns to France for the Salon d'Automne where he exhibits a Landscape of Toledo. In 1953, he is invited by the Painters Witnesses of their Time (Sunday). His passion for Spain is so strong that he goes back to work there during the summer and leaves for Amsterdam in October, where for a year he is a boarder at the Institut Français at Maison Descartes. In June, the Utrecht Museum organizes an exhibition of 50 of his works on Holland and Spain. In 1955, he is invited to the Museum of Besançon as Laureate of the Parisian Criticism. He is named member of the Salon d'Automne (Rest in the Grass). In 1958, the Tasting under the trees (Salon of the young painting) is acquired by the City of Paris. In 1959, he exhibits a set of pastels and drawings at the Galerie Sagot-Le-Garrec, in Paris, in May while the International Gallery of Chicago presents him in March-April among the French Contemporary Masters. He is invited to Chartres and stays during the summer on the Normandy coast in Yport. He holds a very important exhibition in Chicago in October: 50 paintings, 20 pastels, 10 drawings. In July, he wins the Grand Prix of the City of Nîmes. In 1961, special exhibition: 30 paintings on two themes: dancers and trees, Galerie Lorenceau, in Paris; he is at Comparisons, at the Salon d'Automne, at the Dutch Institut. In 1962, the International Gallery organizes a special exhibition in Chicago: 40 paintings, 20 pastels and drawings. In 1964, he is invited back to the Painters Witnesses of their Time (Love). He returns to Paris and meet the philosopher Lucien Goldman with whom he had befriended during his stay at the French Institute of Amsterdam. He participates in the international group of Figurative Art in Japan. In February 1965, he exhibits at the Salon of the Painters Witnesses of their time, theme "Bread and wine". A painting, The holiday linch, is reproduced in color in the catalogue. On the same style of composition as The holiday lunch, he performs a large painting: The lunch of friends with portraits of George Besson, Jacqueline Bret-André, painters Bardone, Jacques Petit and his wife, his friend Dr. Maigne ( Museum of Besançon). In October, special exhibition in Paris, Gallery Sagot-le-Garrec "Watercolors and drawings" with a preface by George Besson. In 1966, he participates in Souillac and the Cahors Museum at the exhibition "Group of 20" organized by Juliette Darle; then to the Baux-de-Provence "Continuity of French Painting" from Renoir, Marquet, Bonnard till today. In May-June 1967, he appears in the exhibition at the castle of Saint-Ouen, organized by Juliette Darle, entitled "20 painters of today" with several paintings. From July to September, at the Museum of d'Annecy, a very important exhibition on 10 years of painting, George Besson writes the preface of the catalogue. In 1968, the Francis Smith Prize was awarded to him. The prize consisting of a month's stay in Portugal, he goes there with his wife and son by taking the Way of Saint Jacques de Compostela. He spends a few days in the north of Portugal, in the mountainous region of Minho; he makes many drawings during the pilgrimage of Sao Bento. That year, Micheline Sandrel comes to his apartment for a report for television. In April 1969, following the Francis Smith Prize, he made a special exhibition of a set of canvases, watercolors and drawings at Casa de Portugal in Paris. In October, he goes to Amsterdam for Rembrandt's anniversary exhibition. He participates in the traveling exhibition "Contemporary French Painting" in major cities of Canada; as well as in Tokyo "Contemporary French Art" and in Manchester. In March 1970, a special exhibition at the Galerie Mignon-Massart in Nantes entitled "Faces of Portugal", preface by George Besson. Special exhibition in Chicago (International Gallery), paintings, watercolors, pastels. In October, the International Gallery of Chicago organizes a special exhibition in Louisville (USA). On the radio, Roger Bouillot devotes two programs to him in his column: "Discophile Contemporaries". In August 1971, he participates in the group exhibition in Hong Kong "French Art" organized by the Cultural Relations of Foreign Trade. In February 1972: special exhibition at the Galerie Marcel Guiotwith, preface to the catalogue by Jean Dalevèze, the main themes are characters in the trees, fruit branches on the sky, snow landscapes. In November, he travels to Vevey, Switzerland, for the opening of his special exhibition (Galerie Alpha). In 1973, his friend, the Polish painter K. Ostrowski, organizes a special exhibition of lithographs at B.W.A. of Gdnynia (Poland). In May, he makesa trip to Grenoble, for his particular exhibition, Au Temps Retrouvé, for which Bergotte writes the preface. The Marcel Guiot gallery organizes a special exhibition in Caracas (Venezuela), Galerie Marcos Castillo, taking up Jean Dalevèze's preface to the catalogue. The Museum of Saint-Denis buys La Fenêtre, a large canvas, 100 Figure. In 1974, the Galerie Guiot presents, in Paris, a set of his lithographic work. In 1975, he travels to Austria and Germany during the summer to visit the museums of Vienna and Munich. In 1977, the International Gallery organizes a special exhibition in Lake Forest (USA). In 1978, a new special exhibition at the Galerie Guiot in Paris, on the main theme of the Marais Poitevin, at the same time as a presentation of the book "About lithography" (Editions Alphonse-Marré), master builder Jérôme Feugereux. In this book, reflections by Paul Collomb on his conception of lithography and largely on his conception of painting. It begins, in June, some studies of shipwrecks, in Brittany, in the area of Concarneau. In November 1980, a special exhibition in Luxembourg (Galerie Marly). Several of his lithographs enter the Gdansk Museum (Poland). In May 1981, a very important exhibition on the theme "20 years of painting" at the Museum of Bourg-en-Bresse, with a catalogue prefaced by the curator of the museum, Françoise Baudson. At the same time, at the Albert Camus Cultural Center in the same city, there is an exhibition of all his lithographic work. In 1982, he is at the first Salon d'Angers organized by Jean Commère...

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