Hommage à Goya, Premier Grand Prix de Rome (1960)

In 1960, Pierre Carron won the Premier Grand Prix de Rome for painting. That year the subject gave candidates unusual freedom: to pay homage to a painter of their choice, among Fouquet, Bosch, Poussin, Tintoretto and Goya, while producing a work of their own. André Malraux was then seeking to renew the competition. Exceptionally released from service in the Algerian War so that he could compete, Pierre chose Goya.

His painting shows a young woman dressed in white, half reclining in an armchair in a sparse interior. On the right, a tall arched mirror reflects her in shadow. The brushwork is free, the palette limited to whites, greys and the red of the floor.

The work now belongs to the collections of the Beaux-Arts de Paris (inventory PRP 208). In 1977 it was shown at the Musée Picasso in Antibes, from 15 July to 31 October, in the exhibition Les Cinquante derniers premiers grands prix de Rome. The prize opened the doors of the Villa Medici to Pierre, where he stayed from 1961 to 1964.

Sources: Beaux-Arts de Paris, Joconde database, Antibes exhibition catalogue (BnF). Photograph of the painting: Beaux-Arts de Paris.

English translation. Read the original French text.