Jean Despujols (1886-1965) Portrait Of Henri Martin Mayor Of Saint Médard En Jalles

Jean DESPUJOLS
(Salles 1886 – Shreveport 1965)
Portrait of a Henri Martin, mayor of Saint Médard en Jalles (Gironde)
Oil on canvas
H. 75 cm; L. 60 cm
Signed lower right
around 1920/25

Bibliography: Esprit des Landes, Jacques Sargos, Editions l'Horizon Chimère, 2010, reproduced p.274

Jean Despujols began his training under the gaze of Paul Quinsac at the Ecole des fine arts of Bordeaux. Flying towards new horizons, he joined the School of Fine Arts in Paris in May 1912, where he studied in the studio of Gabriel Ferrier. In 1914, he won a second first Grand Prix de Rome for painting, but was like many of his generation, mobilized during the First World War as a machine gunner. He joined the Villa Medici in Rome with his friend Jean Dupas in 1919 and worked there until 1923. Back in France, he exhibited regularly at the Salon of French Artists, the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon des Tuileries as well as in many exhibitions abroad, even in Asia. He participated in several decorative projects: he painted a monumental Agriculture for the tower of Bordeaux at the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts in 1925, and in 1936 produced another mural on La Santé for the town hall annex of the 14th arrondissement. from Paris. He gave lessons from 1924 to 1936 at the American art school in Fontainebleau and received the same year 1936 the Indochina prize which allowed him to stay in the French colonies of Asia, where he produced several hundred works. in an exotic flavor — many preserved at Shreveport, Meadows Museum. Returning to France three years later, he designed an exhibition project of his colonial paintings and drawings at the Orangerie des Tuileries, which was finally abandoned after the outbreak of the Second World War. He settled permanently in the United States in 1941 and joined his wife Milicent Jordan, an American pianist he met at the art school in Fontainebleau. He was finally naturalized American in 1945, and pursued a career as a portrait painter and composer of piano pieces, along with his wife. He died in Louisiana in 1965. We owe him The Epitinikaire or Introduction to Integral Enjoyment (2 volumes). He wrote several poems and philosophical, sociopolitical, educational or aesthetic works. Atypical, our portrait of Landes owner is so in more ways than one.

The man who is currently mayor of the town of Saint-Médard-en-Jalles seems to be in the middle of a speech. The half-open mouth of this man in the green suit can assume that he is in discussion with an external interlocutor, which is confirmed by his look which is not intended for us. Original it is even more so by the external context in which it is found. Unique to our knowledge, it is represented in the heart of moors, in a marshy cut with a few pines rising in the background. What better idea to represent a man attached to his land than to 'sit him' in his context?! Also note the typical frame of the period which was painted in imitation of pine bark. A complete work.