Eugène Lagare ( 1872 - 1929) Portrait De La Mère De L'artiste Dans L'atelier, 1895

Eugène Lagare
(Lodève, 1872 - Montpellier, 1929)
Portrait of the artist's mother in the studio, 1895
Oil on canvas
34.5 x 22.5 cm
46 x 34 cm with frame
Signed and dated lower right

The son of a draper from Lodève, Eugène Lagare attended school in Montpellier, where he showed an early aptitude for drawing. At the age of eighteen, he went to Paris to prepare for his baccalauréat, where he rubbed shoulders with the painter Pierre Auguste Cot, a family friend from Bédarieux. At the same time, he worked in the studio of the painter Diogène Maillart, forming a close bond with his son Roger, also a painter. In 1892, on the death of his father, Eugène Lagare gave up the idea of taking over the family cloth mill and stayed in Paris to devote himself to painting. He joined Gustave Moreau's studio at the École des Beaux-arts, where he worked alongside Matisse and Rouault, before gradually turning to sculpture. He was forced to do decorative work to support himself and his mother, who had come to join him. Around 1898, following his meeting with Auguste Rodin, he devoted himself definitively to sculpture, entering the latter's studio first as a pupil, then as a practitioner. From 1900, he exhibited his work at the Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts, where in 1913 he became a member of the jury for the sculpture section. Under Rodin's patronage, he joined the Société nouvelle de peintres et de sculpteurs, before taking part in 1904 in the Indépendants, as well as in the exhibition of the Schnegg gang at the Barbazanges gallery. Also championed by the art dealer Georges Petit, he exhibited in March 1907 at the Contemporary French Art Exhibition in Strasbourg (then part of the German Empire), in 1908 at the Franco-British Exhibition in London, in 1911 at the Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition in Edinburgh, and in 1913 at the World's Fair in Ghent, Belgium. When war broke out, Eugène Lagare could not be mobilized due to health problems, so he left Paris to join his family in the Midi region. He was committed to the Font d'Aurelle psychiatric hospital in Montpellier, where he died in 1929.
Dated 1895, the small oil on canvas presented here is a rare example of Lagare's painting output during his time as a pupil of Gustave Moreau. The young artist paints a frontal, psychological portrait of his mother, seated, frozen like a Flemish primitive, wearing the black of her widowhood. Although Moreau's technical influence is not evident, his lesson is suggested by the small sketches hanging on the studio walls. We can make out haloed figures in rock settings, which can no doubt be linked to the traditional, often biblical, subjects of the École des Beaux-arts competitions. As if to accentuate the eclecticism of the decor, Lagare added to the desk the colorful motif of a blue and white Chinese porcelain vase, placed upside down on the neck. Paradoxical as it may seem, this composition is reminiscent of Moreau's highly liberal and innovative teaching, which prompted praise from Roger Marx as early as 1896: "In the midst of the École des Beaux-Arts, a hotbed of revolt has been ignited: all those insurgent against routine, all those who intend to develop according to the sense of their individuality, have grouped together under the aegis of Gustave Moreau[1]". By combining a certain filiation with the ancients with a fairly direct and fine observation of nature, our painting is similar to contemporary works by Charles Milcendeau or Henri Evenepoel, other pupils of the master.

[1] Marx, R., "Le Salon du Champ-de-Mars", Revue encyclopédique, April 25, 1896, p. 280.

Ref: LTWP15TOOE