Celle qui Ecoute
Works on canvas 100/100 cm
Celle qui est Libre
Works on canvas 50/40 cm 2000
Celle qui Persévère
Works on canvas 150/130 cm 2000
Celle qui Persévère - Détail
Works on canvas 150/130 cm 2000
Celle qui Rêve
Works on canvas 160/150 cm 2002
Celle qui Rêve - Detail de la Licorne
Works on canvas 160/150 cm 2002
Celle qui s'en va
Works on canvas 80/100 cm 1999
Celle qui Sait
Works on canvas 150/110 cm 2001
Celle qui Voit loin
Works on canvas 80/80cm 2001
Celle qui se Tait
Works on canvas 70/50 cm 2000
MOTHER
Works on canvas 150/120 cm 2001
L'insouciante
Works on canvas 150/90 cm 2002
Between mysteries and memories…
It probably began with my Mother.
My Mother was unreachable.
Everyone thought they knew her—Régine, the Queen: a beautiful, lively, sparkling little brunette, talkative. And us? We lived with the mysterious, silent one.
I remember a day when, as a child, I was viciously beaten by a boy… whom I hadn’t even noticed. Mom asked his name, saying she would take care of him. A few days later, he disappeared from the school.
A very active member of the Resistance during the war, she had to get off the train many times and, like the others, line up along the wall; yet she—her coat linings packed with documents—was never the one chosen and shot.
There was, notably, the strange delay my mother took before leaving to see Jean-Claude, my elder brother. She suddenly changed her mind and flew out two days later. The plane she should have taken crashed. She used to say: “Malheur à ceux qui veulent du mal à ceux que j’aime.” And it was better to be on the right side. In a way… a Magicienne, wasn’t she?
I think the inspiration for these Magiciennes came to me when my mother passed away. And I had never made the connection until Étienne THOMAS, my dear webmaster, asked me for an introduction to my Magiciennes…
Between memory and symbolism: Catherine de Saugy’s surrealist canvases (1999–2002).
Between 1999 and 2002, Catherine de Saugy created the series Mes Magiciennes, a body of work where intimate memory meets surreal imagination. Inspired by the memory of her mother, Régine Reynier—resistance fighter and defining figure of her childhood—the artist developed a gallery of archetypal female characters. Each canvas becomes the allegory of a universal quality—listening, perseverance, dreaming, freedom, or carefreeness—expressed through a pictorial language that blends lyricism, symbolism, and visual poetry.
This period marks an essential stage in her artistic path. After the monumental panoramas and mural frescoes of 1992–1996, Catherine de Saugy turned toward more intimate, introspective compositions. Mes Magiciennes are not mere portraits but incarnations of the feminine soul, exploring the complexity of emotions and states of being.
Mastery of texture, intensity of color, and subtle contrasts lend these works particular force. They invite viewers to cross the threshold into an inner world where dream converses with memory, and personal experience becomes a universal language. With Mes Magiciennes, Catherine de Saugy affirms a surrealist style that is both personal and symbolic, opening the way to new artistic explorations in the years that followed.
persévérantes
Saugy Imparts a Visionary Dimension to Modern Portraiture
“Think of commissioned portraits and what invariably comes to mind are dull, fawningly flattering likenesses middle aged executives, clergy, or college presidents. By contrast, Catherine de Saugy, primarily for her multidimensional, luminously translucent abstractions on Plexiglas, takes a characteristically innovative approach.
Toward this end, Saugy presents her subjects in semi abstract metaphysical settings, conveying different aspects of the subject’s personality.”
Marie R. Pagano - art critic
Gallery & Studio Magazine New York