Portrait d?André Suarès. Portrait of the Writer André Suarès by Georges Rouault, 1871-1958

Georges Rouault, 1871-1958
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Portrait d?André Suarès. Portrait of the Writer André Suarès

Original lithograph in black ink. 1926. Signed in pencil. Numbered in pencil from the edition of 35 signed proof impressions, before Suarès?s name was added to the stone. Subsequently issued in an edition of 350 unsigned impressions in the series: Souvenirs Intimes - Intimate Memories. Printed at the studio of Duchatel, 1926. Issued by Edmond Frapier, Paris, 1926.
Ref: I. Ronautly 311, completed fourth proof state.

Excellent extremely rich impression. On cream wove Arches paper. Excellent condition. Full margins. Sheet: 19 5/8?x13?. Plate: 9 5/8?x7? (243x178mm).

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Rouault?s portrait of the writer André Suarès is one of the most powerful icon-like images amongst his whole work in lithography. The ascetic face, the extraordinary drama of the lighting, the atmosphere of mystery, and the certainly deliberate pictorial analogy with a ?Christ Head? make it a work with a haunting power.

Rouault make his first lithograph for Ambroise Vollard in 1910. Drawn at Clot?s studio Rouault found he was not at ease there, and despite the artistic success of the work, it turned him away from the medium of lithography. In about 1924, however, the dealer Edmond Frapier was attempting to revive the art of the lithograph after the First War. He persuaded Rouault to try again, working at Duchatel?s studio. From the first moment everything went well for Rouault and he became deeply enthusiastic about the special richness of the tone values, and the exceptional emotional drama of the light that he could create using lithographic chalk and wash, especially in black and white. Over the period from 1925 to 1933 he drew dome 50 subjects in lithography.

The first of the lithographs in 1925 to 1929 were drawn for Edmond Frapier. Rouault told Frapier that he particularly wanted to make a small series of six which would be portraits of the literary figures who had most deeply influenced the formulation of his own aesthetic and moral ideas. The series included Huysmands, two studies of Gustave Moreau, Leon Bloy, Baudelaire, a self-portrait, and the portrait of Suarès. Suarès was a writer with the strongest of moral, religious and social convictions, his views echoing very closely those of Rouault himself, and it was he whom Rouault originally chose to write the text to accompany the first of the Circus sets of aquatints. He was a key figure for Rouault, and his significance for the artist is very powerfully expressed in this outstanding lithograph.