The garden of the Bonnières-sur-Seine house - Circa 1900.

Oil on canvas signed lower left and located on the back.

Dimensions: 73 x 54 cm

The artist paints here the garden of the birthplace of Marcel Sembat which served as the artist's studio. The couple Marcel Sembat and Georgette Agutte were a remarkable couple of the Belle Epoque. The politician of letters and his wife made it a holiday resort far from the bustle of Paris. They received their artist friends there, such as the painter Matisse. The places were arranged according to their wishes and embellished with works of art collected by the couple. This park planted with Marcel Sembat, a great lover of places and nature, greatly inspired his wife in her works. Today, the Agutte -Sembat house and its gardens have been bought by the city of Bonnières and   have become an institution.

In this familiar place, the artist lets his touch flow in a way that is at the same time free, structured and vibrant. She walks on the canvas and hangs like musical notes on the colorful partition of the garden. This painting is vibrant and alive; one can imagine in the flowerbed of hyacinths in the foreground the keys of a piano;  the foliage of the cedar of Lebanon vibrates in the wind, revealing the pink tiles of the family house. 

Painter, sculptor and art collector, Georgette Agutte is a very free artist with great independence of mind; first strongly influenced by Post-Impressionism, she evolved, under the influence of her friend Matisse, towards a moderate Fauvism. It is appreciated for the use of bold colors. Critics praised this talented colourist's sense of color.

She first practices sculpture.

Then, thanks to her first marriage with the critic Paul Flat, she met around 1893 René Piot, a pupil of Gustave Moreau, who encouraged her to take the courses of this painter at the Ecole des Beaux-arts in Paris. There she meets, among others, Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault.

She works in a workshop located in Bonnières-sur-Seine in the birthplace of Marcel Sembat, patron and sincere friend of various avant-garde artists such as Matisse, Paul Signac, Maximilien Luce. She married him in 1897 and he would become her lifelong companion.

From 1904, she exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants, participated in the creation of the Salon d'Automne, exhibiting there regularly.

From 1897 to 1922, the couple divided their time between their house in Bonnières-sur-Seine, their house in Paris at the foot of the Montmartre hill and a chalet - Le Murger - which they had built in Chamonix.

On the death of Marcel Sembat, Georgette Agutte does not want to survive the companion of her life and commits suicide after having written two sentences in a post "Here are twelve hours that he left. I am late"

She bequeathed a large part of her collections to the Musée de Grenoble, helping to make it an important museum of contemporary art.

The poet and art critic Gustave Kahn organized a major retrospective of his paintings at the Salon d'Automne in 1922.

See the Agutte -Sembat- house