Henri GERVEX

Henri gervex (1852-1929)

His artistic education began with the Prix de Rome winner Pierre Brisset (1810-90). He then studied under Alexandre Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where his fellow pupils included Henri Regnault, Bastien-Lepage, Forain, Humbert (1842-1934) and Cormon; and also informally with Fromentin. Gervex's first Salon picture was a Sleeping Bather (untraced) in 1873: the nude, both in modern and mythological settings, was to remain one of his central artistic preoccupations
Although he was also linked to his elders in the "Impressionist" movement - particularly Degas - whom he frequented in his native Montmartre, in contrast to Manet the young Henri Gervex, who was a pupil of Cabanel at the Ecole des Beaux Arts, was a rising star of the Salon. He enjoyed a sensational debut, but a year later was to suffer the same fate as Manet, and for the same reasons. In 1878, his painting Rolla (Musée des Beaux Arts, Bordeaux) was rejected in a tide of scandal for 'immorality'. Gervex's canvas was also exhibited at a dealer's, Bagne, on the rue de la Chaussée-d'Antin. In contrast to Manet's picture, however, Gervex's attracted an enormous, but enthusiastic, crowd. It definitively sealed the wordly fame of its author, whilst (in Zola's words) making of him a "renegade of the Ecole des Beaux Arts".

Gervex was quickly reconciled with the artistic authorities, and was subsequently to enjoy the glory and career of a successful artist under the Third Republic. An embittered Zola turned him into the arriviste painter Fagerolles in his novel L'Oeuvre, published in 1886.

However, during the 1880s, the painter of Rolla was at the centre of a debate on modern art. Gervex's admiration for Manet pushed him to fight for the latter's admission to the Salon of 1881, and even the winning of a medal. In the same year, he depicted him - with Zola and Valtesse - in prime position in his Civil Marriage, a public decoration he executed for the 19th arrondissement in Paris.

Gervex never forgot that he was in many ways linked to the genesis of Nana - both the painting and the novel. The present lot is in all probability the canvas that was presented in 1881 and 1882 to the Parisian 'Cercle de l'Union Artistique', and is certainly the one which was exhibited in 1885 at the Galerie Georges Petit, where it was much remarked upon.

Gervex clearly wanted to stake his claim to as a modern painter in whom Zola had seen 'a victory of naturalist painting.' Certainly, this didn't escape the notice of the commentators of the time.