Gustave Hervigo (1896-1993) - Majunga Madagascar (malgache Ratovo Ramanda Ralambo ...)

Oil on panel signed Gustave Hervigo (1896-1993), a French painter renowned for his luminous landscapes and harbor scenes.

This work depicts Majunga (Mahajanga) in Madagascar, enlivened by a beautiful coastal scene with boats, pontoon and seaside dwellings. The composition is dynamic, carried by a vigorous, colorful brushstroke, typical of the artist, with a warm palette of pinkish and ochre hues.

The treatment of light and the movement of water lends the whole a lively, warm atmosphere, characteristic of Hervigo's works inspired by his travels.

Signature lower right.

Dimensions:

• A vue : 26 x 35 cm
• With frame: 35 x 43 cm
• Delivery 30 euros

Gustave Hervigo's childhood was divided between his hometown of Rambouillet, where at an early age he worked alongside his father as a craftsman-bourrelier, and summer vacations in Douarnenez. Interested in painting from an early age, self-taught despite receiving advice from Rambouillet painter Henri Laigneau, it was in leather goods manufacturing that, after the First World War, married and settled in Paris, he successfully invested himself, working for Haute Couture^[1] houses. Still painting, however, Gustave opened up to Parisian exhibitions, presenting a painting at the 1925 Salon des Indépendants (an event to which he would remain faithful, as his name is still noted among the 1984 exhibitors^[2]). He became a member of the Société nationale des beaux-arts in 1930.

Forced to go into hiding as a Jew during the Second World War, Gustave Hervigo was generously hosted for several years from 1941 by a couple in Videix (Haute-Vienne). Forced to leave his courageous hosts in a hurry following a denunciation, he worked long and hard, but in vain, to find their descendants^[3].

It was after the war that Gustave became exclusively a painter, forming close friendships with sculptor Jean-Graves (1897-2000) as well as painters Georges Delplanque (1903-1999) and Louis-Édouard Toulet (1892-1967)^[4]. The Afrique-Équatoriale française travel grant awarded to him in 1948 by the Société des beaux-arts d'outre-mer made him a traveling painter: "Tatave-la-bougeotte", for such was the nickname he would earn there^[5], undertook seventeen trips around the world between 1949 and 1981, focusing on Black Africa until 1961: Chad (1949, 1951, 1953), Gabon, including Libreville and Lambaréné (1950), Central Africa (1954), ten months in Cameroon (1955), returns to Chad (1957, 1959, 1961), Madagascar and Reunion Island (1963-1964), New Caledonia, the New Hebrides - now Vanuatu - and Polynesia (1966-1968), Ethiopia and the French territory of the Afars and Issas - today Djibouti - (1969), Norway (1970), Niger (1972), Côte d'Ivoire (1974 and 1976), Russia (1975)^[6], the circumnavigation of the globe on the helicopter cruiser Jeanne d'Arc in 1981^[1].

He was a member of the board of the Société Nationale des Beaux Arts in the painting section in 1977.

Living for a time at 12, rue Jean-Ferrandi in the 6th arrondissement of Paris in the evening of his life, in 1990 he bequeathed his entire studio collection to the town of Rambouillet, where he died in May 1993 and where a square now bears his name.