..."Doudous was a “special commission”. A friend called Brigitte asked me to paint Nono, her son Joseph’s teddy. I’d painted Joseph’s portrait shortly beforehand. Her reason for commissioning this painting was not purely aesthetic or decorative. She was tired of seeing her 10-year-old boy still stuck with his teddy (day and night, throughout the holidays, at school and when travelling!). She lived in fear of forgetting it or, worse still, losing it. The way she saw it, by immortalising the teddy in an official portrait, Joseph would find it easier to grow apart from it. I thought this was a brilliant idea and, once I’d done Nono, I wasted no time in painting my two sons’ soft toys, Hugo’s “Chouchou”, Martin’s “Chagri”, and so on. As it turned out, Joseph didn’t give up Nono, but I had a nice exhibition under way ."...
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