Independent Frenchman

Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac is one French painter who seems to care for neither time nor tides. The critics of a generation ago hailed him for what he was --a master of the impressionist landscape, a distinguished follower of his idol, Cezanne. And Segonzac has kept right on painting that way. It was no way to have a flashy vogue; critics and the public were soon preoccupied with a far more revolutionary crew. But over the years, Segonzac's singlemindedness has had its effect. Last week, three of his latest pictures were on view in Paris' Salon des Tuileries, and the critics were bowing with a respect that bordered on reverence.

"It's Easy at 20." On view were paintings as rich and carefully tended as a French vegetable garden: romantic scenes of a tiny village huddled in the hills, a lush tree-carpeted mountainside, a sparkling bay near the artist's home at St. Tropez on the Riviera. All were drawn with consummate skill, lovingly done in muted greens, earthy browns and greys. Segonzac was pleased by the success of his new paintings. Said he: "It is easy to show traces of genius at the age of 20, but it is difficult to still have talent when you are 60."

At 68, Dunoyer de Segonzac need not worry: his talent is still strong, and backed by a lifetime of ripening experience. Born of wealthy parents, he never had to struggle for a living, always painted as he chose. His parents enrolled him first in Paris' famed Beaux Arts; Segonzac was promptly booted out as too unorthodox. He rented a small Left Bank studio and struck out on his own. When he felt like it, he went off for long painting excursions through the French countryside. But his independence never made him complacent. For his first major canvas, The Drinkers, Segonzac hired two hoboes to pose drinking red wine; it took three solid weeks of posing, twelve layers of paint (and gallons of wine) before he was satisfied. Each morning during his jaunts to the country, he got up at sunrise, donned heavy farmers' boots, went off to paint steadily until sunset. He still seldom takes time out for lunch. "It would be a shame," he says, "to lose the best two hours of the day by going home."

"Nymphs, Not Steam Engines." In 1914 at the age of 30, Segonzac finally held a one-man show. Paris was impressed (one collector so much so that he immediately bought several pictures), and Segonzac became a lion of the French art world. His friends were the cubists and Fauvists--Picasso, Vlaminck, Braque, Dufy--but he never let his wilder and woollier pals influence his painting, kept strictly to gentle landscapes, still lifes, and romantic nudes. Once, Poet Guillaume Apollinaire, an ardent advocate of cubism, urged him to join the movement. "Our modern age, the age of aviation," he argued, "should find its reflection in our paintings." Segonzac politely declined: "Corot lived in the age of the locomotive, but he peopled his landscapes with nymphs, not with steam engines."

Segonzac has never changed his mind. The peaceful rolling landscapes in last week's show are the same ones he started painting as a youngster. And he is just as independent as ever. Parisian collectors would like to buy his latest efforts, but they are not for sale. Segonzac wants to keep them and study them. Says he: "A picture is never really finished. It always represents an effort on the road to perfection."

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