"séverin De Rigne, Little Girl With A Doll, Oil On Canvas"

Séverin de RIGNE (Agen 1914 - Paris 1989)
Little girl with doll
Oil on canvas.
Unframed.
Signed top right and dated 1953.
Dimensions: H. 81 cm, W. 60 cm

Our portrait is a rarity in the work of Séverin de Rigné. Perhaps a work intended for the family circle. It focuses on the frontal figure of a young girl, highlighted in a brightly colored smocked dress, adorned with balloon sleeves and a Peter Pan collar. The artist excels at highlighting the contrast between the tanned skin of the young girl and the plasticized rendering of the celluloid baby she holds in her arms.

Séverin de RIGNE
French painter and engraver, author of voluptuous nudes as well as landscapes of the South, Aquitaine, Alsace, Dordogne and Spain and Algeria. Born in Agen, Séverin de Rigné spent his childhood in Alsace.

His first interest in painting was Hans Holbein, whom he discovered at the Basel Museum. In 1935, he was awarded first place in the entrance exam for the École Nationale des Arts Décoratifs in Paris and continued his training the following year at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts.
His talent was recognized at the Salon des Artistes Français, which awarded him a silver medal in 1939 and then a gold medal. He was also awarded the Eugène Thirion Prize in 1939, intended to encourage a promising young artist, a painter of figures with modest incomes.
Also awarded the Casa de Velasquez Prize in 1940, he was unable to travel to Spain due to the war. Conscripted into an engineering regiment, he was taken prisoner after the Battle of France but managed to escape. Having taken clandestine refuge in the Périgord region during the Occupation, he produced numerous sketches, figures, and portraits.
Returning to Paris after the Liberation, he won the Prix de Rome for intaglio printmaking. In 1947 and 1948, he was finally able to travel to Madrid, where he stayed as a resident at the Casa de Velasquez for ten months.
Defining his pictorial style as neo-figurative, he felt a strong connection to Spain and its masters, including Picasso, whom he admired as a precursor of modern art and a continuator of traditions. Also drawn to Orientalist painting during his stay in Constantine, he trained a promising young artist there, Simone Stracke.
Séverin de Rigné's work is included in French public collections, notably at the École Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Centre Georges Pompidou (Marc Vaux Fund).