Andre Dunoyer de Segonzac

Andre Albert Marie Dunoyer de Segonzac was born on 7 July 1884 in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, near Paris. He attended the Lycee Henri-IV in Paris. His artistic training began around 1900 as a free, non-matriculated student at the Ecole nationale superieure des beaux-arts, and continued in the private ateliers of Luc-Olivier Merson and Jean-Paul Laurens, coursework at the Academie Julian, and study at the Academie de la Palette in Montparnasse.

Segonzac exhibited regularly at the Salon des Independants from 1909, took part in the Salon de la Section d'Or in 1912, and was included in the 1913 Armory Show in New York, the exhibition that introduced American audiences to European modernism. During the First World War he served and produced a body of war drawings that were published and exhibited, work for which he received the Croix de Guerre. In the interwar years his reputation grew internationally: he won first prize at the 1933 Carnegie International Exhibition in Pittsburgh and the main painting prize at the 1934 Venice Biennale, and he had solo exhibitions in Paris, London, and New York through the 1920s and 1930s.

After the Second World War he continued to exhibit widely, was elected a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1947, and became an associate member of the Academie royale de Belgique in 1948. He also produced acclaimed print series across his career. He kept a lifelong connection to Saint-Tropez, where he continued to work until his death. He died in Paris on 17 September 1974, at the age of 90; the New York Times obituary attributed his death to bronchitis. He was buried in the marine cemetery of Saint-Tropez alongside his wife, the actress Therese Dorny.

Segonzac's contemporaries and later commentators consistently framed him as a painter who moved from the orbit of early modernism into a more grounded, naturalist tradition. The New York Times obituary in 1974 described him as "France's most esteemed naturalist painter." His 1933 Carnegie International prize and 1934 Venice Biennale prize drew attention in the American and European press as confirmation of his international standing. His printmaking is also repeatedly cited in French museum literature as a highlight of his output.

Public auction data for Segonzac is limited relative to his museum standing, and available sources do not establish a clear, verifiable all-time auction record. The highest individually documented price found in available sources is EUR 86,100 for a watercolor, La table rouge, reported sold at Christie's in 2006, though the exact sale date is not confirmed and a higher, unlisted result cannot be ruled out. His market also includes a substantial body of etchings, drawings, and watercolors, including sporting and dance subjects, which tend to trade at price points well below his painted landscapes and still lifes.

There is no confirmed catalogue raisonne for Segonzac, so provenance and expertise from a specialist dealer, notably Galerie Sagot-Le Garrec in Paris, carry added weight. Public auction data for the artist is limited and no confirmed all-time record could be established from available sources, so any single result should be read with caution rather than treated as a current benchmark. Buyers should also distinguish between his paintings, which are scarce at auction, and his more available etchings, drawings, and watercolors, which trade in a different and more liquid part of the market. Because the name is sometimes catalogued in surname-first order, such as Dunoyer de Segonzac, Andre, collectors should confirm that a given work is attributed to this single documented artist, active 1884 to 1974, rather than assuming a separate namesake.