Eugène Lagare 1872-1929

Son of a draper from Lodève, Eugène Lagare completed his schooling in Montpellier, where he showed an early aptitude for drawing. At the age of eighteen, he moved to Paris to prepare for his baccalauréat, where he came into contact with the painter Pierre Auguste Cot, a family friend originally from Bédarieux. Simultaneously, he worked in the studio of the painter Diogène Maillart, forming a friendship with his son Roger, also a painter.

In 1892, following the death of his father, Lagare chose not to take over the family drapery business and remained in Paris to devote himself to painting. He joined Gustave Moreau’s studio at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he rubbed shoulders with Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault, before gradually turning toward sculpture. Financial necessity and the need to support his mother, who had joined him in Paris, led him to undertake decorative work.

Around 1898, after meeting Auguste Rodin, Lagare fully committed to sculpture, entering Rodin’s studio first as a student and later as an assistant. From 1900 onward, he exhibited at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, becoming a member of the sculpture jury in 1913. Under Rodin’s patronage, he joined the Société Nouvelle de Peintres et de Sculpteurs and participated in the 1904 exhibitions of the Indépendants, as well as the “Bande à Schnegg” show at Galerie Barbazanges. Supported by the dealer Georges Petit, he also exhibited in March 1907 at the Exposition d’art français contemporain in Strasbourg (then part of the German Empire), in 1908 at the Franco-British Exhibition in London, in 1911 at the Royal Scottish Academy Exhibition in Edinburgh, and in 1913 at the Exposition Universelle in Ghent, Belgium.

At the outbreak of World War I, Lagare was exempt from military service due to health problems and returned south to join his family. He was later institutionalized at the Font d’Aurelle psychiatric hospital in Montpellier, where he died in 1929.