About the artist
Georgette Tavé was born in 1920 in Elbeuf into a family of fabric merchants. Her father opposed her vocation as a painter and it was only after her marriage that she was able to begin her artistic training, first with Jean Souverbie and then with André Lhote. From the former, she retained the importance of the female body and its placement in the canvas.
From the other she retained the cubist like fragmentation of colours and shapes. But it is by forgetting her masters that she managed to find herself. Settled in Modigliani's former studio, she painted relentlessly and found her own bright and balanced style. She participated in the Autumn Salons and was part of the Association of Painters Engravers.
But it was her portrait of Coco Chanel that established her fame. In 1966, Tavé painted two pictures of the famous Mademoiselle. Coco bought the more flattering one. Tavé kept the second one, incisive, brutal and exhibited it. Success was immediate and Tavé was exhibited worldwide. She became more famous in Japan than in France, better known in Cannes than in Paris. Her painting, a vigorous figuration with strong colours, seduced collectors and, although she was not recognised by the official Parisian critics, she had exhibition after exhibition all over the world.
In 1974, she turned again to the nude and then to the colours of Mediterranean gardens. She died in 2008 in her Parisian apartment.
