Georges De Sonneville (1889–1978) Sailboats In Front Of The Hill On The Garonne Circa 1920-hst 32x40

Georges de Sonneville (1889 Nouméa– 1978 Talence) "Sailboats in front of the hill on the Garonne" – Circa 1920 Oil on canvas signed lower left Studio stamp on the back with number 0117 Dimensions: 32 x 40 cm Born in Nouméa in 1889, from a Bordeaux family of wine merchants, Georges Préveraud de Sonneville showed an interest in drawing and painting at a very young age. Encouraged by his family, he took his first classes in Nouméa and then in Sydney. He returned to Bordeaux in 1903. His uncle, a musician and art critic, opened the doors to the artistic world for him. However, he continued his classical studies at the Lycée Montaigne and then at the Faculty of Law, where his ferocious caricatures earned him a certain reputation. At the same time, he studied artistic techniques with Paul Antin at the Atelier and attended the Académie Rosa Bonheur, then enrolled at the Académie Ranson in Paris to follow the teaching of the Nabis Paul Sérusier and Maurice Denis. At Paul Antin's, he met Yvonne Latapie-Tronquet, whom he married just before the First World War. Mobilized in Bordeaux, he shared an office with André Lhote with whom he would "wash watercolors" on the city's quays and in Gradignan. After a Fauvist and Cubist period, he developed a personal, independent style, marked by a line full of movement, served by clear and vivid colors. Considered a leader of modernism in a city locked in a certain academicism, he organized an exhibition entitled "A Group of Modern Painters" for the Bordeaux International Fair in 1919 and began writing, for over 40 years, his journal entitled "Les Cahiers Noirs." In it, he notably discussed the painting of his time. At home in Bordeaux and then in Martillac, where he and his family lived from 1925 to 1931, he welcomed all supporters of a renewed art. In 1928, he founded the "Artists Independents Bordelais" salon. In Bordeaux, he painted the Garonne, the quays, the boats, the sailors, the lively and noisy crowds. In Martillac, he painted the intimacy of the family, the growing children, the grape harvest, and the peaceful life of the village. In Paris, where he lived from 1931 to 1964, he depicted the banks of the Seine and Marne, barges, bathers, streets, and the sights of daily life. He moved to Talence in 1964, where he died in 1978. In 2006, the Georges de Sonneville Museum opened its doors in Cayac, following a meeting between the painter's daughter, Denise de Sonneville-Bordes, who lived in Gradignan, and the mayor at the time. Today, the museum holds more than 80 oil paintings and hundreds of various graphic works by Georges de Sonneville and his wife. The collection is regularly enriched with new acquisitions.