Jean Souverbie 1891-1981

Jean Souverbie was a French artist, known for his modern interpretations of classical nudes, in addition to seascapes and still lifes.

Born in Boulogne-Billancourt in 1891, Souverbie was first encouraged to become a painter after a meeting with two members of the Nabis group, Maurice Denis and Paul Sérusier in 1908. An initial interest in the work of the classical painter Nicholas Poussin at the start of his artistic career would turn out to be an enduring one, the influence of which can be seen throughout Souverbie’s oeuvre, with the artist’s personal take on classism relating to both the 17th century tradition and to ideas of beauty posed by the Greeks. He enrolled at the Academie Ranson in 1916, befriending fellow artists, Pierre Bonnard, Édouard Vuillard and Félix Edouard Vallotton.

The 1920s saw an emergence of Cubist sensibilities in Souverbie’s work, seen particularly in his still life work, owing to his exposure to the work of Georges Braque. Combining the language of Cubism with the more traditional naturalism of the classical painting he loved, the artist began to paint the sensuous nudes he is perhaps best known for; there has been some comparison between his style and that of Picasso’s Pompeiian figures. By 1925, the artist was exhibiting with Galerie Vavin-Raspail, which hosted the Section d’Or exhibition where he met with Ándre Lhote and Pablo Picasso, artists he greatly admired, along with other notable members of the Parisian avant-garde. His first solo exhibition took place the following year and in 1929 he exhibited fifty-four Cubist paintings with another Paris gallery, consolidating his reputation as a noted figure in the Parisian art world. 

Souverbie’s personal style gave itself perfectly to monumental painting and he received many commissions for murals including for the Palais de Chaillot Theatre, Paris in 1937 and for ocean liners from 1945-51. When he became a teacher at the École des Beaux-Arts in the mid-1940s, an atelier of mural painting was created for him. Souverbie’s work can be found in public and private collection worldwide, including the Petit Palais, Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston and the Staatsgalerie in Stuttgart.