Gala 2025 Auction Lot 9: Georges Rouault

Georges Rouault

Paris, France 1871–1958

Hiver Lepre de la Terre: from Folio Miserere 1922

Ink engraving on paper, 28 ¾ × 22 ¾ inches

Value: $1,250 Courtesy of Delphia Lamberson

Georges Rouault was a French painter, printmaker, ceramicist, and maker of stained glass. Rouault belongs to the ranks of major artists linked to the heroic avant-garde years in Paris, where he formed early career associations and friendships with Henri Matisse,Albert Marquet, and Charles Camoin. Initially trained in stained-glass, he went on to study under Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris from 1891-98. Drawing inspiration from French medieval masters, he united religious and secular traditions divorced since the Renaissance. Rouault’s work was strongly influenced by German Expressionism and the ideas of religiously-inspired intellectuals of his time. The majority of his artistic career was devoted to the human figure. Hiver Lepre de la Terre belongs to the Folio Miserere(1922-1927), a book of 58 collated illustrations widely considered to be Rouault’s masterpiece. Rouault’s work and prints from the Folio Miserere are held in the collections of the Denver Art Museum; the North Carolina Museum of Art; MoMA, New York; and the National Gallery of Art, among others.