| Simon Joseph Simon-Auguste | |
| Birth Date: | 20 April 1909 |
| Birth Place: | Bouches-du-Rhône, Aix-en-Provence |
| Death Place: | Roanne |
| Field: | Paintings and Illustrations |
Simon Joseph Simon-Auguste (20 April, 1909 – May, 1987) was a French artist, known for his intimate paintings, mainly portraits, nudes, and still lifes. His production is characterized by a calm, intimate feel and the effective use of glaze.
Born in Marseille, Simon-Auguste was the son of Antonin Auguste, a cabinetmaker specialized in restoring furniture in the chateaux of the Provence.
His mother, Antoinette Rossage, was originally from the Savoie, France. The couple had many children.
Simon studied at the École communale of his neighborhood at rue Eydoux, in Marseille, where he excelled in design.
In 1923, he started working in the Clérissy ceramic factory in Saint-Jean-du-Désert as an interior designer trainee. He later worked painting religious statues and making dolls at a workshop. He combined these various jobs with evening classes at the Marseille school of fine arts (the director was Henri Brémond).
In 1929, he was encouraged to pursue singing at the Music Conservatory under Figarella. This only lasted a year. Also in 1929, he was exempt to do the military service for his bad health.
In 1931, Simon-Auguste finished his studies at the École des Beaux-Arts and won the Stanislas-Torrents award. He was commissioned to execute the mural decorations of the town hall in Allauch. He began exhibiting in Marseille where doctors and lawyers purchased his paintings.
In 1932, he invested into a 6-month stay in Paris, where he frequented the Louvre Museum and became specially interested in the Camondo Collection. At the invitation of art dealer Adolphe Basler, he took part in the Moins de trente ans exhibition, at the Galerie de Sèvres, along with Jacques Despierre, André Hambourg, Louis Dideron, Léon Couturier, among others. He presented a nude, a still life, and a view of the Jardin du Luxembourg. He also started dealing with Georges Petit and the Galerie Vildrac.
In 1933, Simon-Auguste had his first solo exhibition at the Galerie Detailles, at the Canebière in Marseille which contributed to his success. He displayed 40 pieces (paintings, watercolours, and sketches), mostly nudes and genre scenes.
In 1934, he married a philosophy student who would become a journalist under the pseudonym of Michele Seurière. For his second solo exhibition at the Galerie Detailles, a few landscapes and marines were added to his portfolio.
In 1936, he helped illustrate Les Taches d’Encre, by Léon Cadenel, with an ink design of a Provençal landscape.
In 1937, he painted a panel of 250x for the École d’Istres, the title being "Les Salins-de-Giraud", and five other panels (three of 3x and two of 2x for the Château-Gombert school about "Les jeux des enfants".
During the 1930s Simon-Auguste explored subjects around nudes and landscapes. Later these evolved into children, still lifes and locals, full of intimacy and simplicity, which gained him a lot of recognition. Among these, we find La fillette au bol and Tête d'Enfant, which were purchased by the Musée Longchamp, Marseille.
Finally, in 1939, he could afford to move to Paris. The family settled at 38 rue de Malte and Simon-Auguste started submitting his work to the Salon d'Automne, Salon des Peintres Témoins de Leur Temps, and other major exhibitions.
At the outbreak of World War II, he was on holiday in Auvergne. In 1940, he was mobilized. Within two months, he had to retreat to Ussel, forced by his ill health; and, in 1941, he reconverted a rented farm there into his atelier.
Simon-Auguste returned to Paris after the Liberation in 1944, to take part for the first time in the Nationale with La Fillette aux Pommes.
Up to 1947 Simon-Auguste signed his paintings with fountain pen ink. Afterwards, he used brush oil. In general, he tended to sign on the lower right corner.
He spent some Summer holidays in Villiers-sur-Morin in the late 1940s. In 1949,he traveled around Italy: Rome, Florence, Siena, San-Giminiano, Venice, Milan.
In 1950, he was appointed member at the Salon d’Automne. This year he submitted Le Café du Commerce to the Grand Prix de la Peinture Contemporaine, at the Marsan Pavilion (Louvre Museum). He was amongst the 100 painters selected by the jury.
Also in 1950, the city of Paris acquired his Marine de La Rochelle. The Musée du Château de Sceaux acquired Paysage de l'Ille-de-France. The French state acquired La Fillette à la lampe in 1952, Nature morte aux Bleuets in 1953, and Comme un Poisson dans l’Eau in 1955.
In 1951, he contributed to an itinerant exhibition around Switzerland (Bern, Lausanne and Geneva) about Les fleurs et les fruits.
He produced a portrait of French writer and critic Paul Léautaud in 1956.
Simon-Auguste died in Roanne in May, 1987.
His works can be found in private collections and museums, such as the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille, the Musée Cantini in Marseille, the Musée Carnavalet in Paris, and Musée d'Art Moderne de Paris.
“You teach us to see better what lies around us, Simon-Auguste, for you instruct us in silence and its harmonies, and in that tenderness, which resembles silence.”
“Simon-Auguste’s work strikes us by the unity and stylistic mastery which this intelligent and strong-willed painter has succeeded in achieving. The major problems of art are approached and resolved with remarkable determination: that of composition, clear and rigorous; that of line, clean and pure, as in the work of the Primitives; that of color, at once striking in its vibrant blues and subtlety refined, harmonized.”
“...The moving sensitivity of this artist. In blue surroundings, female subjects depicted in peaceful colors assume attitudes of calm and repose; an art of silence and meditation whose delicacy is very winning.”
“I love silence and the sweetness of the daily routine, the simple language of familiar objects, the profound individual glory, the quiet enthusiasm of meditation.”
“I want to escape the modern myth of cosmos, the geometry of the arbitrary and the factual, to translate the balance, density, purity and tenderness of the human figure, its delicate shapes, and to draw this inner world deeper than interstellar spaces.”