Description:

George Rodrigue (American/Louisiana, 1944-2013), "The Class of Marie Courregé", 1971, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower left, artist stamp and inscribed "L'ecole de Louisiane / G. Rodrigue chez Serrier / 72 R. de Dunk. Note: Among George Rodrigue’s most notable paintings, and the most significant to ever come to auction, “The Class of Marie Courregé” has a fascinating and rich international history. Inspired by a family photograph of his mother’s graduating class from Mount Carmel Academy in New Iberia, Louisiana in 1924, the composition contains the group of figures within the artist’s archetypal Louisiana landscape against the backdrop of a dark oak tree and foliage. In The Cajuns of George Rodrigue Rodrigue writes: “Marie Courregé is my mother. [bottom row, third from right] I show her with her school class to show the unity of the Cajuns, their determination to go forward, their desire to embrace the flag of America. It shows the unity a school class has, just as the Cajuns have unity. The class is a family, just as the Cajuns were a family who had the common bond of speaking French. Different shapes of a class show different things. This class has a very solid shape, a very sound and determined shape...” Completed in 1971-72, “The Class of Marie Courregé” closely followed another seminal work by the artist and his first painting with the Cajun people, “The Aioli Dinner.” Both paintings reveal the fully-developed concept established by Rodrigue in which elements have equal weight within the composition; the group, rather than its members, is most important to the narrative; and the story of the Cajun people transplanted into a new home shines within the darkness. Both paintings are singular and noteworthy moments in the artist’s career. “The Class of Marie Courregé” goes a step further however…or quite a few steps further, all the way to Paris. Initially founded in 1667 at the behest of Louis XIV as an exhibition of work by members of the Royal Academy, the exhibition was later led by the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. For three centuries, exhibition in the Salon, as it would come to be called, was crucial to the successful career of any artist. Beginning in 1793, prizes were awarded, and the first jury responsible for the selection of winners was developed in 1849 of forty members, including leading artists of the day. A system of medals was developed to award a handful of artists from the thousands of entries each year. The current Société des Artistes Français is the direct heir of this Salon. Since 1901, the Salon has been held annually (with few interruptions due to war and construction projects) at the Grand Palais on the Champs-Élysées in Paris. Rodrigue’s good friend and artist, Jean Pierre Serrier, convinced him to submit a painting to the Salon in 1974. Serrier, a tremendous modernist in his own right, had entered his artwork for twenty years without any success. Rodrigue selected “The Class of Marie Courregé” to ship to Paris, where Serrier framed it and stood in line to have it judged for the exhibition. Rodrigue then became one of only a relatively small number of American artists to have been selected to exhibit at the prestigious Salon throughout the years and joined an even more distinguished group when he won an Honorable Mention. Other Americans selected to exhibit in the Salon include important artists such as John Vanderlyn, Benjamin West, G.P.A. Healy, Mary Cassatt, and John Singer Sargent. As a result of his award, Rodrigue was defined by the French newspaper Le Figaro as “America’s Rousseau” and received press attention for the first time on an international level for his work. The French government shipped Rodrigue’s certificate to then Governor Edwin Edwards, who presented the award on their behalf. “The Class of Marie Courregé” began a trajectory of recognition and success for Rodrigue that would continue throughout his career. Through all the numerous accolades, museum exhibitions and media attention, no other painting would quite reach of the heights of prestige as this one – the first to cement Rodrigue not only as a Cajun or Louisiana artist, but as an American artist whose work could compete on the highest stages in the world. Ref.: Rodrigue, George. The Cajuns of George Rodrigue. Birmingham: Oxmoor House, Inc., 1976; Rodrigue, Wendy. "The Class." Musings of an Artist's Wife. June 15, 2010. www.wendyrodrigue.com. Accessed Mar. 12, 2019; Rodrigue, Wendy. "American Artists in Paris." Gambit. Feb. 2, 2011; Fink, Lois Marie. American Art at the Nineteenth Century Paris Salons. Washington, D.C.: National Museum of American Art, 1990.

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