Oil paint on board mounted on mahogany panel
Tate Collection
Works with images
General Collection
Contemporary Art Society
Collection
<a href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/georges-rouault-1876" aria-label="More by Georges Rouault" data-gtm-name="header_link_artist" data-gtm-destination="page--artist">Georges Rouault</a>
Three Judges
Bequeathed by Montague Shearman through the Contemporary Art Society 1940
adults
crime and punishment
judge
man
morality
people
social comment
society
work and occupations
<p>Rouault was a deeply religious artist whose paintings frequently depicted those at the fringes of society, particularly prostitutes and circus performers. He made several paintings of judges which express his skepticism about systems of human justice. ‘If I have made judges such lamentable figures, it is doubtless because I betrayed the anguish which I feel at the sight of a human being who has to pass judgement on other men’, he said. ‘The judges themselves I could not condemn’.</p><p><em>Gallery label, November 2005</em></p>
painting oil paint board mounted mahogany panel
8 November 2004 – 13 February 2005
2005-02-13
8 November 2004 – 13 February 2005
2005-02-13
2004-11-08
Fundacio Caixa Catalunya (Barcelona, Spain)
2004-11-08
Georges Rouault
Loan-out
21 November 2005 – 23 October 2011
2011-10-23
21 November 2005 – 23 October 2011
2011-10-23
2005-11-21
Tate Modern (London, UK)
http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/
2005-11-21
Expressionism
Collection based display
The Three Judges
support: 812 × 666 × 37 mm
frame: 970 × 820 × 132 mm
Bequeathed by Montague Shearman through the <a href="/search?gid=999999975" data-gtm-name="tombstone_link_bequest" data-gtm-destination="list-page--search-results">Contemporary Art Society</a> 1940
<p>Rouault was a deeply religious artist whose paintings frequently depicted those at the fringes of society, particularly prostitutes and circus performers. He made several paintings of judges which express his skepticism about systems of human justice. ‘If I have made judges such lamentable figures, it is doubtless because I betrayed the anguish which I feel at the sight of a human being who has to pass judgement on other men’, he said. ‘The judges themselves I could not condemn’.</p>

Display caption
2005-11-23T00:00:00
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DISPLAY_CAPTION
<p><b>Georges Rouault</b><span> 1871-1958 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span><a class="acno-pop" data-gtm-destination="page--artwork" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/rouault-the-three-judges-n05146" title="View the details of this artwork"><span>N05146</span></a> </span><b>Les Trois Juges</b><span> (The Three Judges) </span><i>c.</i><span>1936 </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Inscribed 'G. Rouault' b.r.</span>
<br/><span>Oil on millboard mounted on panel, 30 7/8 x 25 1/2 (78 x 64.5)</span>
<br/><span>Bequeathed by Montague Shearman through the CAS 1940</span>
<br/><i>Prov:</i><span>
With Ambroise Vollard, Paris (purchased from the artist); through Etienne Bignou, Paris; with Reid and Lefevre, London, 1939; Montague Shearman, London, 1939</span>
<br/><i>Exh:</i><span>
</span><i>The Tragic Painters</i><span>, Lefevre Gallery, London, June 1938 (17), dated </span><i>c.</i><span>1930; </span><i>The 1938 International Exhibition of Paintings</i><span>, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, October-December 1938 (200); </span><i>L'Entente Cordiale</i><span>, Lefevre Gallery, London, July 1939 (27); </span><i>The Montague Shearman Collection</i><span>, Redfern Gallery, London, April-May 1940 (28); </span><i>Braque and Rouault</i><span>, Tate Gallery, April-May 1946 (69); </span><i>Acquisitions of the CAS</i><span>, Tate Gallery, September-October 1946 (62); </span><i>Georges Rouault</i><span>, Kunstverein, Frankfurt, February-March 1966 (36, repr.); Kunstverein, Hamburg, April-May 1966 (36, repr.); </span><i>Rouault</i><span>, RSA, Edinburgh, August-September 1966 (68, repr.); Tate Gallery, October-November 1966 (68, repr.)</span>
<br/><i>Lit:</i><span>
Pierre Courthion, </span><i>Georges Rouault</i><span> (London 1962), p.464, repr. c.c.346 (dated 1936)</span>
<br/><i>Repr:</i><span>
Lionello Venturi, </span><i>Georges Rouault</i><span> (New York 1940), pl.52 as 'Judges' and dated </span><i>c.</i><span>1917; </span><i>The Tate Gallery</i><span> (London 1969), p.117 in colour </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Mlle Isabelle Rouault wrote (29 August 1953) that this picture was finished about 1937-8, but in the catalogue of her father's works which she compiled in collaboration with Pierre Courthion, loc. cit., its date is given as 1936. Venturi reproduces it with the date </span><i>c.</i><span>1917. The artist was in the habit of reworking old <a class="glossarylinktopopup" data-gtm-destination="article-page" data-gtm-name="body_text_link" href="http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/c/canvas" title="Glossary definition for 'Canvas'"><span>canvases</span></a> at intervals over a period of many years. </span>
<br/></p>
<p><span>Rouault first became interested in this theme in 1906 or 1907, when he began to attend the law courts at the suggestion of a lawyer friend. On the subject of judges he later said: 'If I have made judges such lamentable figures, it is doubtless because I betrayed the anguish which I feel at the sight of a human being who has to pass judgement on other men ... The judges themselves I could not condemn.' (</span><i>Nouvelles Littéraires</i><span>, 15 November 1924, p.5). </span>
<br/></p>
<p><b>Published in:</b>
<br/><span>Ronald Alley, </span><i>Catalogue of the Tate Gallery's Collection of Modern Art other than Works by British Artists</i><span>, Tate Gallery and Sotheby Parke-Bernet, London 1981, pp.665-6, reproduced p.665</span>
<br/></p>

Catalogue entry
2004-09-15T00:00:00
catalogue-entry
CATALOGUE_ENTRY
adults crime and punishment judge man morality people social comment society work and occupations