SIMONE GOUZE ( XIXe/XXe siècle)Maternité Pastel sur papierSigné en bas à gauche72,6 x 49,3 cm. (28 5/8 x 19 3/8 in.)Pastel on paperExpositionsVisages d'Asie, Saïgon, Foyer du théâtre, 24 Février - 3 Mars 1933Salon des artistes français (157ème), Palais de Tokyo, 1944Simone Gouze,A great name among foreign painters in Asia is still in search of greater fame. We know few about her antecedents, yet through newspaper articles we learn that she was the first European female to have lived in the country of Lolos and traveled to several cities in Asia. Throughout her life, her work was inspired by her own experiences and especially her travels. It is focused on distant communities and marked by the use of pastel. She was hungry for the unknown, the land and the faces, so she traveled during at least five years in China, Vietnam, and Cambodia, where she will develop a passion for these foreign population’s life styles.In 1933, she organized an exhibition of pastels: "Faces of Asia" in the foyer of the theater of Saigon. It brings back a unique testimony of the landscapes and the faces met during her multiple travels. Gouzé drew objects and people who attracted her attention. Each work that we present today tells a story, a discovery, an encounter; each stroke, each color contains her most pure and strong emotions.It is not easy to find a place in art history for women artists. Simone Gouzé was a woman characterized by both originality and mysteriousness; a designer endowed with talent for pastel drawing and gifted with both the taste and the sense of painting.