André Lagrange

André Lagrange was born on 14 September 1889 in Paris. He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts de Paris, where he was a pupil of Fernand Cormon, Martial Hupé, and Auguste Bertrand-Perrony; no specific degree or enrollment years are documented in the sources available. He competed for the Prix de Rome in 1919, 1920, and 1922, receiving a mention honorable in 1920.

He served in the French army during the First World War and was decorated with the Croix de guerre, cited six times, three at the order of the division and three at the order of the army corps. In the years that followed he built a career as a painter and decorative artist, winning the Prix Rosa-Bonheur in 1924, the Prix Eugène-Thirion in 1925, and the Prix Jean-Jacques-Henner in 1927. He was later named Officier de la Légion d'honneur in 1957. His decorative commissions included murals for at least four casinos in France, among them the Casino de Cannes and the Casino de Deauville; the dates of these projects are not confirmed.

Lagrange died on 15 September 1958 in Arcueil, France, one day after his sixty-ninth birthday. Readers should note that at least one other, unrelated person also named André Lagrange is documented in French sources: a poet who lived from 1928 to 2012. He should not be conflated with this painter.

No verbatim critical assessment from a named critic in a major outlet could be located for André Lagrange. His standing in his own period is documented mainly through institutional recognition rather than published criticism: the Prix de Rome mention, three consecutive named academic prizes in the 1920s, wartime citations, and appointment as Officier de la Légion d'honneur. Later references to him are largely confined to auction price guides and regional biographical notes rather than art-historical commentary, which suggests a painter who was formally decorated in his time but has not been the subject of sustained critical or scholarly attention since.

Lagrange's auction presence is modest and unevenly documented. The highest reported result is USD 120,650 for the oil on canvas By the Water, signed and indistinctly dated 1915, sold at Sotheby's New York in 2025. That figure is reported by the aggregator MutualArt, which describes it as the artist's record price; Sotheby's own listing for the work shows only a presale estimate of USD 20,000 to 30,000, so the exact sale date and the confirmed hammer breakdown are not independently visible in the public record. A separate auction price guide (Aucties) reports that recorded lots by the artist otherwise sold for prices ranging from EUR 40 to EUR 11,900, with a top example attributed to an oil on canvas, Pique-nique d'ete (1920), estimated at EUR 9,000 to 13,000; that source does not name the auction house, city, or sale date. The most recently documented, fully sourced sale is a lot of four botanical watercolours that sold for GBP 160 at Dominic Winter Auctioneers on 9 October 2024. No current gallery or estate representation could be confirmed, and no museum collection holdings could be confirmed in the available research.

The auction record for André Lagrange sits on thin, partly unverified ground. The highest reported figure, USD 120,650 for By the Water at Sotheby's New York in 2025, comes from the aggregator MutualArt rather than a directly visible realized-price record, and Sotheby's own listing shows only a presale estimate. A separate reported high of EUR 11,900 for Pique-nique d'ete does not disclose the auction house or sale date, and a lower figure attributed to a 2009 Artcurial sale could not be corroborated with a work title. None of these figures should be treated as a confirmed benchmark without further primary-source checking. Because at least one other person, a French poet who lived from 1928 to 2012, shares the name André Lagrange, buyers should confirm that any work, document, or listing actually refers to the painter born in 1889 and who died in 1958. With no catalogue raisonne, no identified estate, and no confirmed current gallery representation, authentication for this artist depends on dealer expertise, signature comparison, and documented provenance rather than an institutional record.