Son of Gabriel DOMERGUE – short story writer, art critic and editor of ‘La Liberté’ and ‘L’écho de Paris’.
Jean-Gabriel is a secondary school pupil at the Lycée de Bordeaux and then attended the Lycée Rollin in Paris. He is passionate about drawing. He wins first prize in a drawing competition organised by the City of Paris, after which a friend of his mother’s commissions a portrait from him. He is 14 years old and it is his first commission… He joins TOULOUSE LAUTREC in Montmartre who is a distant cousin. He frequents his studio and, in his company, discovers the Moulin Rouge and its dancers… He at first borrows then shares a studio above that of DEGAS, on rue Victor Massé. It is in the stairwell that he meets Degas for the first time. Despite a frosty start, Degas takes a liking to him and having put him to the test by making him paint over the same door more than twenty times, he teaches him to observe and to see… for over a year. Jean-Gabriel would never regret this period. He meets and admires BOLDINI through his descriptions of elegant society women and his nervy and sophisticated drawings. He is also enchanted by CHERET’s advertising eye.