Hubert-Sauzeau, an exhibition in Niort, Deux-Sèvres department

1. Jules Gabriel Hubert-Sauzeau (1856-1927)
Harvest in Poitou, c. 1897
Oil on canvas - 54 x 73 cm
Poitiers, Musée Saint-Croix
Photo: Poitiers, Musée Sainte-Croix

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He had benefited in 2017 and again in 2019 from two discreet focused exhibitions organised by the Musée Bernard d’Agesci in Niort at the initiative of its director, Laurence Lamy, who had been approached by Guy Brangier, a regional historian. A Niort painter from the last third of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th, Jules Gabriel Hubert-Sauzeau was completely unknown at the time, barely mentioned in a few general works on artists from the Deux-Sèvres and the Poitou-Charentes region. In 2017, intrigued by this painter - a fellow citizen of his commune of Prahecq identified among the members of the Amicale des deux-sévriens de Paris known as la Fouace - Guy Brangier requested the museum, which he knew to be the privileged repository of his work following a founding bequest made in 1927.

2. Jules Gabriel Hubert-Sauzeau (1856-1927)
Welcome to the Soldier or the The Soldier’s Halt,
c. 1885
Oil on canvas - 150 x 90.4 cm
Niort, Bernard-d’Agesci Museum
Photo: Musée Bernard-d’Agesci

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A limited corpus of works was rediscovered in the museum’s storage rooms, but their interest was not overshadowed by their generally poor state of conservation. Seventeen paintings were selected for immediate display in the museum’s main hall from 30 May to 30 July 2017. This pioneering display led to a new donation, which in turn was given the honour of a temporary presentation in summer 2019. Mireille and François Saint-Martin, who had owned Hubert-Sauzeau’s last house in Niort since 1983, were preparing to sell it, and decided to donate to the museum the fifty or so works, personal objects, drawings and notes by the artist - together with a substantial archive (postcards, correspondence, photographs) relating to his son, Hubert Philippe Sauzeau - that they had inherited from his niece, Renée Ferret, at the time of the purchase.

3. Jules Gabriel Hubert-Sauzeau (1856-1927)
The Vendéans Ask Cathelineau to Lead the Insurrection or
The Guys from Le Pin-en-Mauges, 1900
Oil on canvas - 135 x 216 cm
Niort, Musée Bernard-d’Agesci
Photo: Musée Bernard-d’Agesci

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4. Jules Gabriel Hubert-Sauzeau (1856-1927)
The Bégrolle Mill or
Help! , 1887
Oil on canvas - 260 x 381 cm
Niort, Bernard-d’Agesci Museum
Photo: Musée Bernard-d’Agesci

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5. Jules Gabriel Hubert-Sauzeau (1856-1927)
Wrestlers or Fairground Wrestling
Oil on canvas - 329.5 x 252.5 cm
Niort, Bernard-d’Agesci Museum
Photo: Musée Bernard-d’Agesci

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Thanks to three years of further research and a dynamic acquisition policy jointly led by Laurence Lamy and Guy Brangier, the rehabilitation then initiated gave rise to the retrospective…