Georges Rouault (1871-1958)

Born: May 27, 1871
Died: 1958
Nationality: French

Biography of Georges Rouault

Georges Henri Rouault (1871-1958) had already completed his apprenticeship to a stained-glass window maker when he entered, in 1891, the École des Beaux-Arts, where he was a pupil of Moreau from 1892 to 1895. He became the first curator of the Musée Moreau in 1898. His early works show Moreau’s influence, but by 1903 he had abandoned his dark and overworked oil-paintings of Biblical subjects for the series of Prostitutes, Clowns (from 1904, 1907, and again during the 1930s), and Judges (from 1908). These usually have heavy dark contours enclosing areas of violent colour, and express the painter’s loathing of vice, hypocrisy, cruelty, and complacency. Although he exhibited at the famous Fauve show in 1905, he remained aloof from all groups and systems of aesthetics, and developed one of the purest forms of Expressionism. Before 1908 he worked mostly in watercolour and gouache, only returning to oil-painting after about 1918; he also executed a large amount of graphic work. His series of etchings, originally made for two books Guerre and Miserere from 1916 to 1927, were eventually published in 1948 under the title Miserere, and he also made lithographs and coloured etchings. His themes remained within the limits of his three series, religious subjects – chiefly of the Passion (Rouault was a devout Catholic), landscapes of bleak and hostile country, and an occasional bouquet of flowers. He worked for the Diaghileff Ballet in 1929, executed tapestry cartoons in 1933, and in 1945 designed stained-glass windows for the church of Plateau d’Assy (Haute Savoie). There are works in most museums of modern art.