Rare militant painting by Germaine Lacaze, specifically composed for the theme “An Event” chosen for the March 1963 edition of the Salon des Peintres témoins de leur temps, at the Musée Galliéra. The choice of the right to vote for women, granted 15 years earlier in 1947 by General de Gaulle at the Liberation, and first exercised in April 1945, is characteristic of the artist’s great feminist sensitivity and the importance she attached to the exercise of this fundamental right.

Having painted herself in the centre of the canvas, in the lead of the women voters, slipping her ballot paper into the box, she is followed by an elegant woman (posed by her friend from Bordeaux, Mme Sartoulet) and by women of all generations. A wink from the artist: the silhouette of General de Gaulle can be seen under the flags.

A woman artist, aware of her talent at a very young age and having to justify it more than necessary in an artistic milieu of mainly male painters, Germaine Lacaze has asserted throughout her career the right of women to participate on an equal footing with men in the wonderful profession of painting.

Regularly participating in the Salon des femmes peintres et sculpteurs until its closure in 1970, giving in the iconography of her work a privileged but not exclusive place to the female body, Germaine Lacaze thus testifies through her work to her militant vision of a necessary fair balance between the sexes in all fields.