1928 - 1991

Freeze-Frame

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Let us look for a moment at this triple portrait. Two Vincent Rouxs and one woman. The woman, Yolande Brawanska, was one of the favourite models of the painter during the sixties. Here, thanks to an unidentified photographer, the artist presents his double image to the viewer.The right profile, tense, determined, is that of a man entirely engaged by the work he is creating while remaining fiercely concentrated on the face that his painting will capture and swallow up. This is the Artist. On the other hand, the left profile, reflected in the mirror, is that of a slightly unsure and easily wounded creature, closely related to the adolescent that he once was.Charming, affectionate and a little ashy, this is the Eternal Youth. Make no mistake - the close existence of these two personalities was not always easy. It was difficult to have an alter ego so sure of himself that he dominated everything around him.

But there is no need to dwell on this well-known domestic situation ('Oh, beloved Narcissus, what a strangle couple you make!'). Let us just remember this - the eternal youth who, until the end, yearned for discoveries and self-discovery was mirrored by the able, confident artist. Happy to abandon the decorum of his studio, he could paint anywhere (including swimming pools), but he never painted anyhow. Twenty times over he would rework a canvas (we show here one of the first sketches, so full of verve, of the Self Portrait in a Green Turban that we will see later). He particularly worked his drawings with a sureness of hand and a taste for high detail that his costume designs for the Marseilles Figaro bear witness to. A photograph showing him at work in his last period looks as if it itself had become a work of art.

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Jean-Michel ROYER