Georges Dorignac
Suzanne 1902
Oil on canvas
Signed and dated on the bottom right: Jorge dorignac 1902
61 x 50 cm
Provenance
- Paris, the artist’s family
Bibliographie
- Georges Dorignac, dessins rouges et noirs, catalogue d’exposition, Galerie Malaquais, Paris, 31 mars – 21 mai 2016, repr. p.13 cat. n°2
- Mansencal, Marie-Claire, Georges Dorignac, le maître des figures noires, Le Passage, Paris, 2016, repr. p.140 cat. AD4
- Georges Dorignac (1879-1925), le trait sculpté, catalogue d’exposition, Roubaix, La Piscine – musée d’art et d’industrie André Diligent, 19 novembre 2016 – 5 mars 2017, Bordeaux, musée des Beaux-Arts, 18 mai – 17 septembre 2017, repr. p.102, n°3
Exposition
- Georges Dorignac, dessins rouges et noirs, Galerie Malaquais, Paris, 31 mars – 21 mai 2016, n°11.
- Georges Dorignac (1879-1925), le trait sculpté, Roubaix, La Piscine – musée d’art et d’industrie André Diligent, 19 novembre 2016 – 5 mars 2017, Bordeaux, musée des Beaux-Arts, 18 mai – 17 septembre 2017, n°71
Suzanne was the daughter of the artist’s companion, Céline Lacoste (1877-1965). A widow, she met Georges Dorignac around 1900. Her daughter, Suzanne, born in 1896, was six years old when this portrait was done. Dorignac and Céline Lacoste had three other daughters together, Georgette (1902), Geneviève (1904), and Yvette (1905). The women of his family were always Dorignac’s favorite models. The four daughters all married artists. In 1927, Suzanne became the wife of the painter Henri Epstein, who, like the Dorignac family, lived at La Ruche.[1] She died in 1977.
This painting is one of a series of oil portraits that Dorignac did on canvas of his wife and daughters, all of which emanate great gentleness. Four years later, at the Salon des Indépendants, he showed a Portrait of Georgette[2] at the age of four sitting in the same chair, in the same frame, and in the same frontal position as Suzanne.
On November 16, 1900, Dorignac joined the 40th regiment of the infantry in Bayonne and was discharged on January 31, 1901. He stayed in Bayonne for a year, where he became part of a group of Spanish artists that included Isidre Nonell y Monturiol, Dario de Regoyos y Valdès, and Ricardo Florès, and he showed with them at the Salon des Indépendants in Paris. During this period, he signed his works ‘Jorge.’
[1] Georgette married the painter André Hébuterne in 1922; Geneviève married the sculptor Louis Dideron in 1927, and Yvette married the sculptor Marcel Damboise in 1928.
[2] Georges Dorignac, Portrait of Georgette, 1906, oil on canvas, signed and dated, 73 x 60 cm, private collection. Reproduced in 2016, Mansencal, cat n°7.