Description
Geoffroy DAUVERGNE (Flers, 1922 - Dinard, 1977) "La Criée", circa 1951-1952. Oil on canvas marouflaged on isorel signed lower right. Height: 170.5 cm. Width: 170.5 cm. Provenance - Collection of Mr. and Mrs. M., Dinan. - Galerie Brouard, Dinan, 2015. - Private collection, Côtes-d'Armor. With the artist's catalog raisonné, Alain Valtat's certificate of authenticity and a notice of inclusion in the catalog raisonné. "I remember his slender silhouette at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he was quickly noticed for the spontaneity and strength of his pictorial style". René Quillivic. The son of a magistrate, Geoffroy Dauvergne planted his roots in Brittany. At school in Vitré, only one teacher noticed the boy's talent. His drawing teacher was none other than Etienne Blandin (1903-1991), newly appointed painter to the French Navy. Not content with training him, he advised "Géo"'s parents to take up drawing, as no other discipline was as attractive to him. So, in 1941, he enrolled at the Beaux-Arts in Rennes, without his 'Bac', in Mathurin Méheut's studio! The class crunches under the bombs and the master's outbursts. Dauvergne didn't care, and stood up to him: "He had, perhaps alone among his classmates, the strength and will to resist the great personality of our teacher Monsieur Mathurin Méheut. He had chosen oil painting, he continued, he liked painting portraits, he continued. ". He won numerous awards, including the Prix de la Ville de Rennes in 1942-1943. In 1944, he joined the Beaux-Arts in Paris. There, he breathed, rubbed shoulders, drew inspiration, experimented, matured his being and his art, and became Geoffroy d'Auvergne, a painter trained by Blandin and steeped in Méheut and Cubism. A new Breton from the Nouvelle Ecole de Paris with "an overall vision of shapes, colors and light, in a given space and at a given time". In 1949, he won second prize at the Prix de Rome, a failure that forever shattered his psychological balance. He worked mainly in the region where he grew up, the Rance valley, Dinard and Saint-Malo. An architecture enthusiast, it was only natural that he should become a fresco artist of genius, honoring numerous public and private commissions. He had a particular fondness for seascapes, and he was well rewarded. He was offered the distinction of Painter of the Navy. But he was free in Paris, and would remain so at home: unable to live under constraint, he refused. Then a family tragedy plunged him into the most terrible torments. Sinking into poverty, only his paintbrush could keep him alive, putting "before his eyes the light he could not see shining within". His work, still relatively unknown, was the subject of a retrospective at the Palais des Arts in Dinard in 2018. His paintings are extremely rare on the market. "La Criée" thus offers a wonderful opportunity to make Géo better known through one of Dauvergne's masterpieces. Bibliography: Alain VALTAT, Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre du peintre Geoffroy Dauvergne, Levana, 1996.
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Geoffroy DAUVERGNE (Flers, 1922 - Dinard, 1977)