"Petit Auto Portrait" (Small Self Portrait) by Gaston Louis Roux (France, 1904-1988), oil/canvas, signed and dated 1950 on back, partial gallery label also on back, framed - 22" x 18"

Roux studied at the Academie Ranson and worked at the studio of Raoul Duffy. At the age of 25 Roux had his first individual exhibition at the Galerie Simon in Paris, a gallery owned by Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler. Kahnweiler was instrumental in selling Cubist and avant-garde paintings and sculptures. Roux was a friend of Alberto Giacomettie, Michael Leiris, Andre Masson, and Roger Vitrac. His work between 1927 and 1956 was largely stored at the Galerie Simon and not widely exhibited. It was nearly 50 years after Roux's passing that his work was made more known to the art world. It has been said that as a painter Roux was "able to shift from anxiety to irony and the pleasure of seizing the moment."