Georges Rohner (1913–2000), *la Palette*, Self-portrait, Oil On Canvas

Georges ROHNER
1913–2000

The Palette
Oil on canvas
Signed lower right
27 x 22 cm

Born in Paris in 1913, Georges Rohner began visiting the Louvre at a very early age before enrolling at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1930 as an independent student in Lucien Simon’s (1861–1945) studio. He exhibited for the first time at the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon des Tuileries in 1934. That same year, the exhibition at the Musée de l’Orangerie titled *Les Peintres de la réalité en France au XVIIe siècle* (Painters of Reality in 17th-Century France) left a lasting impression on the young painters in his circle. It was alongside them that, in 1935, he participated in the first exhibition of the Forces Nouvelles group, held at the Billiet-Vorms Gallery in Paris. This group, founded on the initiative of the art critic Henri Hérault, brought together former classmates from the École des Beaux-Arts—including Henri Jannot, Robert Humblot, and Jacques Despierre—as well as other artists such as Pierre Tal-Coat and Jean Lasne.

Forces Nouvelles advocated a return to drawing, to the line, and to a rigorous, classical representation of reality. Georges Rohner, who described himself as a classical painter and an admirer of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres and Philippe de Champaigne, was one of the group’s leading figures and participated in all four of its exhibitions between 1935 and 1941. He disapproved of the systematic distortion of the subject, preferring instead a certain geometrization of the composition that made use of framing that was at times daring.

The small-format painting we are presenting here resembles a self-portrait. The hand holding the palette is depicted life-size. It can be compared to the 1942 self-portrait held at the Centre Pompidou, in which the artist’s left hand holds a pencil. The muted tones and the use of chiaroscuro to isolate the form are characteristic of the artist’s painting. The hands drawn by Georges Rohner have a particularly recognizable quality, especially in the rendering of the fingernail outlined in brown.