Arcachon Forest

by Solange Mocquard-Petitjean (Paris VIème, February 20, 1903 - Paris XVème, November 18, 1990), oil on canvas signed lower left Mocquart-Petitjean, 81 cm x 121.5 cm. Bears on the back an apocryphal handwritten label and the number 3, Circa 1935. Original frame in solid oak with rosewood veneer. While Solange Mocquart-Petitjean is referenced in various Fine Arts directories, her career as an artist is known only to a few gallery owners and collectors. Here is a brief biography produced from the few elements we were able to gather. It may perhaps serve as a starting point to discover the life, work and related activities of this artist as part of research or a dissertation topic... Born in the 6th arrondissement of Paris on February 20, 1903, Solange Caroline Petitjean is the daughter of Edmond Louis Jean Baptiste Petitjean (1871 - ? ) and Jeanne Marie Louise Valentine Moulinot (1879 - March 5, 1903). Her ancestors are: Elie Etienne Redon de Valasanges (1687 - 1753), lord of Issoudun, Gabriel Busson de Plagny (1714 - 1767), equerry advisor to the king, lord of Plagny, mayor of Bourges, Antoine Redon de Valasanges (1734 - 1792), knight of the military guard of Saint-Louis. She married Pierre Félix Mocquard (Saint Nazaire, August 1, 1898 - December 24, 1933 / lieutenant in the 8th Engineer Regiment then reserve captain) on August 1, 1923 in Colombes or La Garenne-Colombes (Hauts-de-Seine). We do not know when her long career as an artist began as a painter of genre, nudes, landscapes... but she was noticed for her style and her subjects in the various salons or exhibitions in which she participated before the Second World War. Thus, the Toulouse daily "La Dépêche", in its section "Our painting exhibitions" published these few lines on February 17. 1938 on the occasion of the "Salon des Occitans": "... One cannot fail to notice, in particular, these delicious paintings where the artist plays with lighting and the velvety texture of the flesh, by Mme Mocquard-Petitjean; she is a virtuoso and the buyers came...", or again, the following year, on February 19, 1939: "... Here is a painter of the voluptuous nude who had already been very well noticed last year, Mme Mocquard-Petitjean: her panels Rêverie, Sommeil, Repos are a great success..." In an article in the Parisian newspaper "L'Atelier" published on May 17, 1941, p. 6, we learn that she is participating in an exhibition of models and theater sets entitled "l'atelier au spectacle": "Dear Parisian readers, if you pass by before the end of the month, between 1 p.m. and 6 p.m., at the confluence of Bd Raspail and Bd St Germain, stop at number 240bis. There is the Galerie du Club de France and there is currently a very interesting exhibition of models of theater sets and costumes. It would take a lot of space to properly report on an event of this importance. I can only mention a few names here.… Mrs. Mocquard-Petitjean (exhibits) luminous southern sets and a tropical night." Have theater sets been part of her artistic life since the beginning? Has this activity become necessary for her to survive in Paris? The period was very complicated under the occupation, moving around the region to paint outdoors had become difficult or even impossible since the German invasion, and she had been a widow since the end of 1933. Then came the Liberation... We do not know when she met Roland Michel Philibert Bigorgne (Rochefort, July 13, 1900 - Paris XVème, March 12, 1960), general engineer at Télécoms. They married on August 12, 1948 in the XVème arrondissement where they settled (?), at 6 rue Henri Duchêne. She lived there until her death, at the age of 87. Since the end of the war, she regularly participated in salons and exhibited in Parisian galleries. A monographic exhibition was dedicated to him, for example, at the "Galerie Soulanges", directed at the time by Mrs. Denise Soulanges, at 20 rue de l'Odéon - Paris 6th, from March 16 to 31, 1965. We were able to find the poster published for this occasion, a testimony to the interest that some Parisian gallery owners and many amateurs had in him. In the 70s, it still appeared in the "National Directory of Fine Arts", Edition-Thibaud, 1976 - 1977.