JAMES COIGNARD (France, 1925-2008). "2000" - LES BLEUS SUR NOIR", #1019A, 1999, signed and numbered J.Coignard 10/50, color carborundum.

sheet size approx. 76x55 cm, LITERATURE: L´OEUVRE GRAVÉ de JAMES COIGNARD Volume V #1019 HOMMAGE JAMES COIGNARD The French Riviera is an exemplary common denominator.
It was he who brought Dag Häggqvist and James Coignard together.

Dag Häggqvist is the man behind, among other things, the Gazell and Sonet record labels and a respected name in both the Swedish and international music industry. Music, art and literature have always been an important part of his life. Since the very first Midem fair in Cannes in 1966, Häggqvist has returned year after year. Along the way he was introduced to the French artist James Coignard by the brothers Paul and Albert Hervieu who ran galleries in Nice and St. Paul de Vence.

Apart from a couple of years in New Orleans in the USA when he shared a residence and studio with fellow artist Max Papart, James Coignard lived and worked on the French Riviera, whose atmosphere and color scale are clearly present in many of his works. Coignard was a painter, sculptor, ceramicist and glass artist. From the late 1960s, etchings in carborundum technique became central to him and also led to his major breakthrough.

When Dag Häggqvist and Sonet opened Galleri Östermalm in Stockholm in 1969 with a focus on original graphics, James Coignard was one of the first artists to be exhibited.

Now Crafoord Auktioner in Stockholm has the unequivocal pleasure of presenting Dag Häggqvist's own collection with the theme of Coignard, which includes about 40 graphic sheets, tapestries, glass sculpture from a cabin in Venice, oil painting and a large bronze sculpture that stood in the garden at Sonet's house on Lidingö - all the result of a friendship that began at the time when the French Riviera was at its sunniest.