Mid Century French Oil Painting Half Length Male Nude Portrait Seated Man

Artist/ School: Suzanne Dinkés (French, 1895 – 1984)
Medium: oil on canvas, unframed
Size : 22 x 18 inches
Signed verso
Provenance: private collection, France
Condition: The painting is in overall very good and sound condition.

This mid-20th-century painting by Suzanne Dinkes is an intimate, expressive portrait rendered in oil on canvas, showcasing her confident brushwork and sensitivity to light and form.

It depicts a seated male figure, shown from the waist up against a softly textured, pale background. The artist uses a restricted palette—muted earth tones, ochres, and warm flesh hues—to create a striking contrast between the subject’s skin and the luminous backdrop.

The paint is applied with visible, impasto strokes, lending the surface a tactile quality and emphasizing Dinkes’ gestural approach to portraiture. The sitter’s pose is relaxed yet dignified, with a slightly tilted head and calm, introspective expression. Subtle highlights along the cheekbones and shoulders capture the natural fall of light, giving the figure a quiet presence and psychological depth.

Overall, the work exemplifies Dinkes’ mid-century interest in modern figuration—bridging classical portraiture with a looser, painterly modernism that focuses as much on emotion and character as on physical likeness.