Gaston Schnegg's painting

Gaston Schnegg always drew and painted a great deal. Painting was easier to sell and, through sales of paintings, he could finance his sculpture. In his drawings and his fine, smooth and well finished painting, he manifests the same qualities that are evident in his sculpture : harmony, accuracy and moderation, and the search for expression, atmosphere and beauty in daily surroundings.

a detail of Jeanne's portrait, 1914,
Oil on canvas

He was excellent in portraiture. Professor Roudié⁽¹⁾ particularly appreciated his portraits: "...the portraits of his wife, his children and himself seem to me to be his most accomplished works. In the portrait of his daughter sitting, design is as pure as Ingres'⁽²⁾ and the quality of his whites is so refined that they are very difficult to match. There is something fascinating in this picture, so simple, so calm and so intensively present."

The portrait was on the poster of the Gaston Schnegg's Exhibition in 1986, the fruit of donations and gifts by Jeanne Schnegg, and is also on the cover of the catalogue issued by the Museum of Arts in Bordeaux.

Sketches or drawings preparing his sculpted or painted works are always very carefully made. They are finely elaborated and care is taken with the smallest details. The works also indicate a very sharp study of light and shadows.

Besides portraits, still lifes, home scenes, and street scenes in Paris, he often painted the Garonne riversides, capturing perfectly the warm and peaceful atmosphere of the villages in Gironde during the summer when the sun gives a golden colour to the stones and lets some mist or clouds rise above the horizon.

The brook in Langoiran

Oil on panel

The barrel

Oil on panel

In his still lifes and paintings of rustic homes, he caught the slightest ray of light sneaking in the semi-darkness through the closed shutters, giving life to glass or varnished earthenware.

Document created by Marine Schenegg
Pr Art Spring kindly helped to translate into English