WISSANT. - Lot 63

WISSANT. Portrait of Jean Gabriel Lemoine. Oil on isorel, signed lower right and dated (19)61. René Lemoine Collection. H. 40 cm - L. 25 cm Background: René Lemoine was born in Paris in 1934 and died in Libourne in August 2024, close to his family. His mother, Yvonne, was a pianist, and his father, Jean-Gabriel, a museum curator, lecturer and art critic. René was thus nourished by the growing number of art books his father received every week, by the paintings and writings his father collected, and by the friendship and stories of painters and artists his parents met and entertained, such as Princeteau, Braem, Foujita and others. His pronounced taste for the imaginary, his bulimic reading of science fiction and detective novels, and mind games such as mathematics, computers, chess and bridge were the necessary compensation for the great handicap of his life: a terrible stammer. He was in turn a freediving underwater hunter, then a hunter on foot, a computer scientist who managed Groupe Sud-Ouest's accounts for several decades, a lover of golf and travel to the four corners of the world, thanks to the friendship he enjoyed with a certain Trigano, and an eternal collector of engravings, scouring flea markets such as the one on Bordeaux's famous Place des Quinconces, well known to connoisseurs. It was engravers such as Philippe Mohlitz, Paul Leuquet and Pierre Soulage, whom his parents frequented, who confirmed his immoderate taste for this subtle art, which he also initiated by buying a huge press and developing a passion for framing. What remains of his consuming passion are hundreds of testimonials to a time when people took the time to create these works of dazzling finesse that scholars and fine minds will hang on their walls and in their hearts forever.