Featured Artists & Gallery News

The Jorgensen Gallery is once again delighted to take part in the Vue contemporary Art Fair at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin from November 8th to 10th 2019. This year we will showcase a selection of new paintings by two of our foremost gallery artists, Allan Madsen & Clement McAleer. Both of these artists have very distinctive and recognisable styles. Allan is known for his exquisite still life, landscape and figurative paintings with their textured surfaces, which evoke ancient fresco paintings, while Clement is known for his expressionistic and atmospheric landscape paintings which perfectly capture the restless and shifting nature of the Irish landscape. What both artists have in common is a profound understanding of the technique of painting in the service of an idea or an emotion. Allan’s meticulously painted, almost trompe l’oeil still life paintings and Clement’s landscape paintings with their vibrant colour combinations show that both artists are absolute masters of their craft.

In addition we will also have a varied selection of paintings by some of the major names of 20th Century Irish art including works by Camille Souter, Basil Blackshaw, Charles Brady, Tony O'Malley, William Scott and John Kingerlee. We will also feature new paintings by contemporary gallery artists, Mark Cullen, Caroline Canning, Therese McAllister, Colin Watson and Tim Woolcock. Contemporary sculptors showing with the gallery this year include Catherine Greene, Vadim Tuzov, Siobhan Bulfin, James Horan, Donnacha Treacy, Michael Keane, Rowan Gillespie and Kevin Gaines.

If you wish to attend the preview evening on Thusday November 7th from 6.00 to 8.00 p.m. click on the link below and save or print the invitation. If you wish to attend during the fair you can print or save the general admission ticket below. The fair will be open on Friday, November 8th from 11.00 a.m. to 7.00 p.m., Saturday, November 9th from 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m. and Sunday, November 10th from 11.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.
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William John Leech, RHA (1881 – 1968)
"Portrait Bust of May Botterell"
Bronze, Edition 1/12
​12½” x 11” x 19”

This extremely rare bronze portrait sculpture by William John Leech of his wife, May Botterell, is the artist's only piece of sculpture, and was cast from his original plaster model. Although dating from circa 1920/25, this sculpture remained in the artist's own private collection in Surrey, until it was bequeathed to his friend and biographer, the poet and art historian, Alan Denson, and was only exhibited publicly for the first time by the Gorry Gallery, Dublin in 1988. Denson published a biography of Leech in 1968, entitled “An Irish Artist, W.J. Leech R.H.A. 1881 – 1968”, and this bronze is illustrated in his biography. This bronze is the first from an edition of twelve, cast by the Dublin Art Foundry, and the original plaster model from which the bronze was cast is now housed in the National Gallery of Ireland, thus ensuring that this limited edition could never be repeated.

William John Leech was born in Dublin in 1881, the son of a professor of law at Trinity College. In 1898 he enrolled at the Dublin Metropolitan School of Art and the following year he moved to the Royal Hibernian Academy School of Art, where he studied under Walter Osborne. In 1901, like many other Irish art students at the time, he enrolled in the Academie Julian in Paris, remaining there for the next two years. In 1903 he moved to Brittany and settled in the fishing village of Concarneau, painting mostly plein-air harbour scenes and atmospheric interiors of local cafes and bars. His early style of painting was formal and academic, but he gradually developed a more fluid style, showing influences from French Impressionist painters, with single strokes of pure colour laid side by side on the canvas, perfectly capturing ever changing light and shadows.
 
Leech was elected an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1907 becoming a full member in 1910, the year that his parents moved from Dublin to London. From then until 1921, the year his father died, he divided his time between France and England, and held his first solo exhibition in London in 1911. In 1912 he married fellow artist, Elizabeth Saurin Kerlin, and she features in two of his most famous paintings, A Covent Garden, Brittany and The Sunshade both of which are now in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland. However, their marriage was not to last, and towards the end of the First World War they agreed to a separation.
 
In 1918 Leech was conscripted into the British Army and spent the last six months of the war in a detention camp in France. Returning to England in a state of depression, he was unable to paint. In 1919 he met May Botterell, the wife of a distinguished London lawyer. She supported Leech financially and emotionally, although their relationship forced Leech to avoid publicity and curtail the exhibition of his works in London. As a result he sent many of his paintings to Dublin and in 1944 Leo Smith of the Dawson Gallery became his agent. When May Botterell's husband died in 1952 she was free to marry Leech. They settled near Guildford in Surrey and Leech had a studio constructed in their garden, where he continued to paint until May's death in 1965. After her death he suffered from severe depression and in 1968 he fell from a railway bridge near their home and later dying from his injuries. ​

Evie Hone, HRHA (1894-1955) "Study for Stained Glass" Gouache, 6" x 9½"

Evie Hone first studied art at the Byam Shaw School of Art in London, and then with the British artist Bernard Meninsky at the Central School of Arts & Crafts. She later studied at the Westminister School of Art in London under Walter Sickert. In 1917 she met fellow Irish artist Mainie Jellett, who was also a student of Sickert’s and the two were to become lifelong friends. From 1920 to 1931 they spent a few months every year studying in Paris, with the French cubist artist, Andre Lhote. They also became pupils of Albert Gliezes, one of the original Cubist artists, and for part of each year until 1931, they travelled to France and assisted him in developing his principles of abstract painting.
 
In 1924, Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett held a joint exhibition of abstract paintings in the Dublin Painter’s Gallery. This exhibition didn’t receive a favourable critical reaction, however it established both artists as pioneers of modern art in Ireland. The following year Evie Hone abandoned painting altogether and joined a community of nuns in Cornwall. However a year later, she returned to painting, her work was now more figurative in style and brighter in colour. At this time both Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett were elected members of the group “Abstraction Creation” in Paris. They also exhibited at the Salon des Independents, the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Surindependents. Evie Hone was also elected a member of the “7 & 5 Society” in London in 1926, where she regularly exhibited until 1931.
 
In the early 1930’s she made the move from painting to stained glass. She was inspired by her visits to the cathedrals at Chartres and Le Mans, and her work of this period was very much influenced by the artist, George Roualt, with flat blocks of colour and bold black outlines. In 1933 she joined An Tur Gloine, the stained glass studio established by fellow Irish artist, Sarah Purser. It was here under the guidance of Michael Healy that she learned the skills of working with glass, and soon established a reputation for her innovative designs and skilled technique.
 
As a stained glass artist, Evie Hone was hugely successful with over fifty commissions both in Ireland and abroad. In 1937, she converted to Catholicism, and from this time on, her work became more religious in character. In 1939 she was chosen to design a stained glass piece for the Irish pavilion at the New York World Fair, where she was awarded first place for a work in stained glass, which helped to consolidate her reputation as a stained glass artist. In 1944, An Tur Gloine closed down and Evie Hone set up her own studio in Marlay Grange in Dublin. Some of her finest stained glass work was completed in the late 1940’s such as the commission for the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Cavan. Her work there and in the church at Tullabeg helped her to secure a commission for the east window at Eton College, which she completed in 1952. This work gained her international recognition and ranked her as one of the foremost stained glass artists of her time. In addition to her stained glass work, she also regularly exhibited her own paintings and designs at the Royal Hibernian Academy annual exhibitions in Dublin. Evie Hone is now represented in all of the major public art collections in Ireland, and is regarded as one of the most important Irish artists of the twentieth century.

​French artist, Bernard Lorjou is best known for paintings that deal with political themes, and that were often controversial, painted in a highly expressionistic manner with bold, striking colours. Born in 1908 in the Loir-et-Cher department in the Centre-Val de Loire region of France, Lorjou moved to Paris, as a teenager, where he lived in deprived circumstances in a small room on the Boulevard Raspail. After his financial situation deteriorated further, he lost his accommodation, and spent many nights sleeping in the Orsay train station. His fortunes changed, however, when he found work as a designer with the silk house of Ducharne. While working there, he designed prints for many of the major French fashion houses, including Jacques Fath, Balmain, Lanvin and Christian Dior. Some of the celebrities of the day, who wore clothing, featuring his distinctive designs, included Marlene Dietrich and Wallis Simpson, the Duchess of Windsor. His work as a designer was to sustain him for the next thirty years, allowing him the financial freedom to pursue his desire to be a painter.
 
In 1931, Lorjou visited Spain, for the first time. On his visit to the Prado Museum in Madrid, he discovered the expressive styles of El Greco, Velázquez and Goya, which had a major influence on his own painting. At Ducharne, he met fellow artist, Yvonne Mottet, and in 1934, they set up an art studio in Montmartre in Paris. At that time, inspired by current political events, he painted “La conquête de l'Abyssinie par les Italiens.”
 
In 1939, Lorjou returned to the town of Blois, as Germany began to invade France, later becoming mayor of the town, for a short period. As an artist, he exhibited early in his career at the Salon des Indépendants, showing there for the first time in 1942. In 1945 Lorjou had his debut solo exhibition in Paris at the Galerie du Bac. That same year, he painted the “Miracle de Lourdes” (Collection of the Venice Museum) and also exhibited his paintings in numerous exhibitions, nationally and internationally. In 1946 the Galerie du Bac held an exhibition dedicated to the emerging style of “Expressionist” painting. The artists represented included Chaim Soutine, George Rouault, Edouard Joseph Goerg, James Sidney Ensor, and Lorjou. Later that year, Lorjou also exhibited his paintings at the Salon des Indépendants, before being invited to have a one man exhibition in London.
 
In 1948, alongside Bernard Buffet, Lorjou was honoured with the ‘Prix de la Critique’ award. Also, that year, he and art critic, Jean Bouret formed a group known as L’Homme Temoin, with the stated aim of defending figurative painting. This group held their first exhibition at the Galerie du Bac, and in 1949, held their second exhibition at the Galerie Claude in Paris. This exhibition attracted other artists to join the group, among them Bernard Buffet, Jean Couty, Minaux, and Simone Dat.
 
The 1950’s was a very productive period for Lorjou, where he concentrated in his painting on themes, inspired by contemporary political events. One series of paintings from this period, “L'Age Atomique”, is now owned by the French Government, and is housed in the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. Other paintings from this period, include “La Peste en Beauce”, which dealt with the threat of bacteriological warfare, and “Matin du Couronement”, which was a controversial tribute to Queen Elizabeth II. In 1951 Lorjou painted “La Conference”, in response to the Geneva Convention, which granted people the right of refugee status. He like many others, believed that this charter focussed more on the interests of nations, rather than on the plight of refugees. In 1953, Lorjou started exhibiting with international art dealers, George and Daniel Wildenstein, a collaboration that lasted ten years. His first solo exhibition in the United States took place the following year at the Wildenstein gallery in New York. That same year he also exhibited with his wife, Yvonne Mottet, at the Kamakura Museum in Japan.
 
Other works of Lorjou’s inspired by political events, include a makeshift structure he erected on the Esplanade des Invalides in Paris, in which he exhibited a series of paintings, protesting against the Soviet Union’s invasion of Hungary. In 1958, he relocated this structure to the “Exposition Universelle” in Brussels, where he exhibited his large scale painting “Renart à Sakiet”, which denounced the French occupation of Algeria, and which greatly angered the French government. He continued to paint politically charged works throughout the 1960’s, often satirizing political figures such as General de Gaulle, or focusing on themes such as racism, and unjust war.
 
In 1966 Lorjou moved his summer residence to Spain and that same year he was commissioned to paint the ceiling of the African room for the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, in Paris. In 1968 at the request of the United Nations, Lorjou created a poster for the fight against famine.  In the same year, he organized a moving exhibition around Paris titled “Le Camion Rouge”, in reference to the predominantly working class communist suburbs of Paris. The paintings that Lorjou presented in these exhibitions dealt with themes based on current world events and with these paintings, he sought to help viewers gain awareness of world events taking place around them.
 
In 1969 Lorjou produced a series of paintings based on the murder of Sharon Tate, and that same year his painting “The Marbella Studio” was purchased by the Museum of Modern Art in Paris. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, Lorjou continued to exhibit internationally, with solo exhibitions in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and Miami. In 1985, a major retrospective exhibition of his paintings was held in the Palais de l’Europe in Menton, and that same year he held his last exhibition, on the theme of the AIDS epidemic. Bernard Lorjou died in 1986, on the last day of this exhibition. Posthumous exhibitions of his work were held in Caracas, Venezuela and Tokyo, Japan.

Arthur Maderson "River Dordogne, towards Sunset" Oil on board, 35" x 48"

​Vibrant colour is a major feature of Arthur Maderson’s shimmering impressionistic landscape painting “River Dordogne, towards Sunset”, which displays his fluency with colour harmonies and his ability to capture the shimmering interplay of light and shade in the landscape. In a similar fashion to the Impressionist painters, Maderson is fascinated by human visual perception in both its physiological and psychological aspects, and his paintings are an attempt to capture a fleeting moment where nothing ever remains static. As the artist himself has said, his art strives to capture a "rich kaleidoscope of raw visual information" in an attempt to express what is actually seen rather then what is believed to already exist. The forms depicted in his paintings, merge with and dissolve into their environment, in a rich tapestry of dappled brushstrokes, which he describes as a 'surface universe composed of crushed jewels', in an attempt to imitate the way in which we actually perceive. His paintings, eschew contemporary trends and fashions in art, in his single minded pursuit of the idea of human visual perception and how that can be translated into art.
 
Born in London in 1942, Arthur Maderson trained as an artist at the Camberwell School of Art, which he attended from 1959 to 1963, and where his teachers included the artists, Frank Auerbach, R.B. Kitaj and Robert Medley. An interest in psychology and psychiatry led him to pursue a career in mental health, focussing in particular on using art as part of the therapeutic treatment of patients in psychiatric treatment centres and in penal institutions. In 1970 he was appointed to the position of Head Art Therapist in Park Prewett Hospital, Basingstoke, where he stayed for the next eight years. In 1978 he obtained a position in the British Institute for Brain Injured Children, where he was responsible for developing programmes of physical and neurological activities for brain injured children.
 
Although, Arthur Maderson achieved much personal and professional success in his chosen career, he still maintained the desire to pursue his artistic passion, and in 1982, at the age of forty, he made the decision to leave his rewarding career in art therapy and mental health services, to devote himself to painting full-time. Not many paintings by Arthur Maderson still exist from the period of his life prior to 1982, as he destroyed almost all of his previous artistic output when he decided to become a professional artist, .
 
Maderson found success as a painter almost immediately and in the following years; he had a series of successful one person exhibitions in Ireland, England and Belgium, and participated in group exhibitions throughout Ireland, England and the United States, which cemented his reputation as an artist. Although he achieved great commercial success as an artist with a number of his exhibitions selling out, he never sought to court the publicity that subsequently followed and never felt comfortable moving in artistic circles. Against the advice of his agent who wanted him to move to London to further his career, Maderson, then at the height of his success, retreated to an isolated farmhouse in Wales, subsequently moving to rural Ireland in 1989, fulfilling a lifelong desire to live in Ireland. He settled in Cappoquin, in County Waterford where he still lives and describes himself now as Irish, not by birth but by inclination.
 
Arthur Maderson is now considered to be one of the finest contemporary landscape and figurative painters in Ireland, and has exhibited his paintings throughout Ireland, most notably at the Cork Arts Society, and the Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin. He is also known as an astute art critic and author, and has contributed many articles to various art publications. His paintings can now be found in numerous public and private art collections internationally, including those of The Arts Council U.K., British Telecom, the Intercontinental Bank, the Crawford Art Gallery Cork, and the Irish State Art Collection at the O.P.W.

​Rose Brigid Ganly was born in Dublin in 1909, the daughter of William Dermod O’Brien and Mabel Smiley. Her father was a well-known Irish artist, noted for his French landscape paintings, and latterly made his reputation in Dublin as a portrait painter. He was also active in the cultural life of the Irish capital, and was the longest serving president of the Royal Hibernian Academy. Her early years were spent in Cahermoyle, Co. Limerick, before the family moved to Fitzwilliam Square in Dublin in 1919. She first studied art at the Metropolitan School Dublin, where her tutors included well-known Irish artists Patrick Tuohy, Seán Keating and the sculptor Oliver Sheppard. As an artist, she showed early promise as a sculptor, and in 1929 was awarded the Taylor scholarship for her one of her male nudes. She also studied painting at the Royal Hibernian Academy School, where her contemporaries included Leo Smith, who went on to become an influential art dealer and gallery owner in Dublin and with whom Rose Ganly had a solo exhibition in 1965. She was elected an associate member of the Royal Hibernian Academy in 1928, and in 1933 she spent six months painting in Florence, and held her first solo exhibition at the Dublin Painter’s Gallery in 1935. She was subsequently elected to full membership of the R.H.A. that same year and also completed her first commission for All Saints Church in Blackrock, County Dublin. During the 1940’s and 1950’s she had numerous exhibitions in Ireland with her sister in law, Kitty Wilmer O’Brien, and also travelled to the United States where she completed a number of portrait commissions, and represented Ireland in an exhibition of contemporary Irish painting. In 1951, in a similar fashion to fellow Irish artists, Evie Hone and Mainie Jellett, Rose Ganly travelled to Paris to study with the renowned French Cubist artist, André Lhote. The influence of Lhote is apparent in this painting “Female Nude” which dates from that year, with its shallow perspective, and three dimensional forms broken down into flattened planes of complimentary colours, to create a harmonious composition. In 1972, Rose Ganly was made an honourary member of the R.H.A., in recognition of her achievements as an artist. During the 1970’s and 1980’s, she continued to exhibit throughout Ireland and two major retrospective exhibitions of her paintings were held at the Gorry Gallery, Dublin in 1987 and the Dublin City Gallery – The Hugh Lane in 1998. Her paintings are now housed in many important private and public art collections throughout Ireland, including those of the Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, the National Self Portrait Collection and the Dublin City Gallery – The Hugh Lane.

Georges Braque was one of the leading figures in the development of modern European art, from his association, in the early years of the 1900’s, with Post-Impressionism and Fauvism, to his later involvement, with Picasso, in the foundation of Cubism, one of the most revolutionary and influential movements in the history of 20th century art. Braque was born in 1882 in the village of Argenteuil-sur-Seine, a favoured location for many of the major French impressionist painters, such as, Edouard Manet, Pierre Auguste Renoir and Claude Monet. Braque’s family subsequently moved to Le Havre, where he enrolled in evening art classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, and also joined his father in the family painting and decorating business. His early training in painting and decorating, where he learned to grind pigments, mix colours and master painting techniques such as marbling and faux wood effects, are evident throughout his oeuvre.

Braque and Picasso met for the first time in 1907 and for the next seven years they forged a deep personal and artistic friendship, visiting each-others studios regularly, to examine each-others paintings and to discuss their ideas of art. It was from this close association that they evolved a style of painting, influenced primarily by the paintings of Paul Cezanne and by a mutual interest in African art, which sought to do away with received conventions of realist painting. Their new style of painting was disparagingly christened “Cubism”, by the French art critic, Louis Vauxcelles, on seeing Braque’s landscape paintings of L’Estaque in 1908, which emulated the landscape paintings of Paul Cezanne. Both Braque and Picasso attempted to portray the notion that we are not just neutral viewers of an objective external reality, but that our perceptions are also informed by our preconceived knowledge of the world. Cubism, as practised by Braque and Picasso, deconstructed objects and linear perspective (the illusion of depth on a flat surface) and reduced them to their basic elements of geometric forms and flattened planes. This reconstruction of objects and pictorial space led to the stylistic motif of showing objects from a variety of viewpoints simultaneously, a motif that became a hallmark of Braque’s artwork and of Cubism as an art movement.

Braque is also credited with the invention of the papier collé technique of collage, which he first used in 1912, when he drew on imitation wood grain paper that was pasted onto a white background. Papier collé differs from collage in that only paper cut-outs are used in the construction of the artwork, whereas collage employs various different materials. This method of picture making was central to what is now referred to as synthetic cubism. Early analytic cubist paintings dis-assembled different facets of various objects and reconstructed them, evoking the same object. Synthetic cubism focussed on constructing objects, often through paper cut-outs which in outline resembled the form of the actual object, such as a vase or a jug in a still life painting. In this way, both Braque and Picasso were innovators who created the first “mixed-media” artworks, and who also raised the question of whether an artwork could be composed of an assemblage of manufactured or everyday materials, such as newsprint or coloured paper.

This new visual language of Cubism, originated by Braque and Picasso had a far reaching influence over many visual artists both in France and throughout the world, such as Juan Gris, André Lhote, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Leger, Francis Picabia, Robert and Sonia Delaunay, and Diego Ribera. Two important Irish artists, who were at the forefront of the modern art movement in Ireland, and who were very much influenced by the theories of Cubism were Mainie Jellett and Evie Hone, both of whom studied with André Lhote and Albert Gleizes in Paris. They, in turn, influenced a younger generation of Irish artists, such as Rose Ganly, who spent six months in Paris studying with Andre Lhote in 1951, and who produced a number of cubist paintings in this period.  
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As an artist, Braque was a ceaseless innovator and explored many different techniques of art making, including etching, lithography, sculpture, stained glass design and jewellery design. As testament to his standing as a giant of modern art, Braque became the first ever artist to have his work exhibited at the Louvre, during his own lifetime.

Anthony Palliser was born in 1949, of an English father and a Belgian mother. He trained as an artist at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, before moving to Paris in 1970, where he still lives to this day. During the 1990’s he was visiting professor of fine art at the New York School of Visual Arts in Savannah, Georgia, a city that he still visits frequently.

As an artist, Anthony has exhibited extensively, with over twenty eight solo exhibitions and countless group exhibitions, throughout Europe and the United States. As a portrait painter, he is highly sought after, and one of his most famous portraits, that of the writer, Graham Greene now hangs in the National Portrait Gallery in London. He has also completed numerous portrait paintings of well-known people from the world of arts and music including the singer, Marianne Faithful, film directors, James Ivory and John Boorman, and actors, Helena Bonham-Carter, Kristin Scott Thomas and Pierce Brosnan.

Anthony has always had a long standing connection to Ireland, having met the well-known patron of Irish arts, and member of the extended Guinness family, Garech de Brún in France. In subsequent years, he became a frequent visitor to Luggala, the estate in the Wicklow mountains, which de Brún inherited from his mother. It was with the encouragement of de Brún, that Anthony embarked on painting a series of portraits of Irish poets and writers, such as John Montague, Seamus Heaney, Colm Toíbín and Derek Mahon.

In more recent years, he has invited friends to pose for him, and produced a series of very large scale portraits, where the canvas is dominated by the face of the sitter, often seen from the front, looking directly at the viewer. In this series of paintings, the direct gaze and imposing size of the canvas is in marked contrast to the sense of intimacy, that is an inherent element of Anthony’s portrait paintings.
 

James Campbell Noble, RSA (1846 -1913)

​James Campbell Noble was born in Edinburgh in 1846. He first studied art under William McTaggart at the Royal Scottish Academy, and his early paintings consisted mostly of portraits, idyllic plein air scenes of country life and rustic genre scenes, such as country cottage interiors. He was elected an associate member of the Royal Scottish Academy in 1879, becoming a full member in 1892. He later became a teacher at the Academy and one of his pupils was the well-known Scottish artist, Robert Gemmell Hutchinson. Over the course of his career as an artist, he gradually broadened the subject matter of his paintings to include landscapes, and marine paintings, in particular. In addition to painting the landscape of his native Scotland, he also travelled extensively throughout Europe in search of suitable subjects to paint, and captured the scenic landscape of the rivers Seine, Merwede, Meuse and Rhine. He lived for part of his life in Holland and the area around the port of Dordrecht became one of his favourite places to paint. His Dutch port scenes and seascape paintings are now considered to be his most characteristic artworks, and are now in the collections of many art museums, such as the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, the National Gallery of Scotland, the Sheffield Art Museum and the Walker Art Gallery. Over the course of his life he was a consistent contributor to the Royal Academy exhibitions in London, where he exhibited from 1880 until 1896.

Constantin Kluge’s paintings show his captivation with the city of Paris, whether in the gaiety and animation of the flower markets, or the quiet serenity of the banks of the Seine, his skill in capturing changing sunlight, with vigourous brush strokes, and impasto paint, evokes the plein-air paintings of the French Impressionists. The architecture of the French capital features prominently in his paintings, possibly due to his own profession as an architect. As an artist, he was also renowned for his impressionistic landscape paintings of the French countryside.
 
Constantin Kluge was born in Riga, Latvia on January 29th 1912, of Russian parents. In 1914, Kluge’s father was drafted into the Czar’s army, however the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 and the civil war that followed forced the family to leave their home. They moved frequently, finally settling in Manchuria in 1920. In 1925 they moved again to Shanghai, where Kluge graduated from the French Municipal High School. By the time he was seventeen he was an active member of the Shanghai Arts Club. He also had a talent for music, studying both the violin and cello. Although he had obvious artistic talents, from a young age, his parents decided against him pursuing a career in art, and encouraged him to study for a professional qualification, so in 1931 he left Shanghai for Paris, to study architecture. He then spent six years studying at the École des Beaux-Arts and graduated as a French Government Architect in 1937.
 
The years spent studying and living in Paris had instilled in Kluge a strong attachment to the city and after graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts he stayed another six months in Paris, where he painted numerous scenes of the city. On returning to China, he practiced as an architect for some time, but a successful exhibition of his paintings, inspired him to take his artistic ambitions, more seriously.
 
In 1946 he accepted an architectural post in Hong Kong and continued to paint in his spare time. In March 1950, with rumours that the Chinese Communists might invade Hong Kong, Kluge left Asia and returned to Paris. Already a mature and successful painter when he reached Paris, he gained considerable attention at the Paris Salon in 1951 and was given an award for his contribution that year. From that year on, he exhibited frequently at the Paris Salon and at the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français, where he was awarded the Medaille d’Argent in 1961 as well as the special Raymond Perreau prize, given by the Taylor Foundation at the Salon. In 1962, he achieved the highest honour at the Salon, when he was awarded the coveted gold medal.
 
In 1990 Kluge was made a Chevallier of the Légion d'honneur by the French Ministry of Culture for his contribution to art in France. The following year he was awarded the Grand Medal of the city of Senlis. In addition to his success as an artist, he was also a writer of considerable stature and his autobiography Constantin Kluge was published in 1987.
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