Printer: Mourlot

Dimensions: 57 x 48 cm

Condition: Very good 

Available: Available in charcoal frame £400 + P&P

Artist: Jean Jégoudez (1915 -2007) was a French artist. Born in Paris 1915, he inherited his father’s and grandfather’s artistic genes. The family ran a successful stonemason’s business in Paris which designed the façade of the Claridge building on the Champs Élysées. At the same time as working for the family firm, Jean studied at the National School of Decorative Arts and worked with the art deco graphic designer Jean Carlu. During World War II, he was imprisoned by the Germans in Provins. He managed to escape and return to Paris on foot.

Forming close friendships with the poets René Guy Cadou, Jean Bouhier and Luc Bérimont, he illustrated many of their poems.

His drawings focused on patterns involving nature, faces or eyes. His evolving style flipped significantly between figurative and abstract. The art critic, Jean-Françoise Chabrun ranked Jégoudez among the best French painters in the 1950s and admired his “marvellous audacity, without which he would not see the world neither as it is nor as it will be.” He was a regular exhibitor in Paris before retreating to the South of France in the 1960s with his second wife. He died in Grasse in 2007, aged 91.