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1950, Fending for oneself
Encre de Chine sur Papier | Collection particulière
Four years before, in 1946, Mennessons decided to give up the security of his job as an industrial designer and to face the hardships and uncertainty of a life devoted to painting, in which one has nevertheless to make a living. This small drawing which had been offered to family friends shows both his mastery in the art of movement, his sense of caricature, of self-derision, and his lucidity. The clown is given a kick in his bum by a huge foot – the foot of ruthless society. That is the price one has to pay when one wants to be free. Humour enables him to bear the burden of self-sufficiency with elegance. It was to be Mennessons’s solace in the darker hours of his life. This drawing is not dated. There is only the end of the artist’s name on this work which was found at the art-collector’s daughter’s. What she could remember and the comparison with other works of the same period enables us to surmise that it was probably made in 1950.
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