Elegant Saigonnaise - Vietnam - Indochina

Elegant Saigonnaise - Dry pastel and graphite on ocher paper signed and dated 1931 lower left

Jules Gustave Besson (1868 - 1942) Born in Paris. He took classes with Cabanel, Delaunay and Gustave Moreau at the École des Beaux Arts. Thanks to a travel grant from the Colonial Society of French Artists, he traveled to French West Africa. In 1925 he won the Indochina Prize and went to teach at the brand new School of Fine Arts in Hanoi. His stay continued with his appointment to the Gia Dinh school of applied arts, of which he was director until 1939. In 1930, he participated in the first Salon of Indochinese Artists in Saigon where metropolitan artists and students from art schools exhibited. Indochinese art. He died in Saigon. The work presented here is a magnificent pastel and graphite drawing dated 1931, depicting a three-quarter rear portrait of rare elegance.