Louis Abel-Truchet was a major French painter, etcher and lithographer of his time. He was born in Versailles in Paris and this city was to remain close to his heart throughout his life. He is well known for his paintings portraying turn of the century life in Paris. Working mainly in oils his paintings included portraits of elegant young Parisian women, landscapes of the city and scenes depicting everyday life in Paris. He particularly liked to paint the artists quarter of Monmartre.

He was a student of the well known Julian Academy in Paris and was a student of Julian Lefebvre and Benjamin Constant. Paris was not the only city he painted, he only produced some magnificent works showing other cities such as Venice, Sienna and Marseille.

He was not happy with his role as an artist being confined to the ‘mere’ portrayal of scenes and life and became involved in other areas such as the annual exhibitions in Paris. In 1908 he helped launch the ‘Salon D’Autome’.

Louis was deemed by many to be an ‘Impressionist’ due to the style of work he created, yet the wealth and variety of work he created throughout his life makes it impossible to define his role as an artist only through Impressionism. His role as a satirist of the time was also a major part of his life and this motivated him to be one of the founding members of the Society of Humorists. He has favorably been compared to the great satirists of the day such as Forain.

He was also a member of the Cornet Society. A fraternity of artists, musicians, academics and other prominent Parisians who met regularly to discuss matters of the day. The society invited artists of the group to supply illustrations which were made into postcards and menus and Louis produced a number of illustrations for them.

At the age of fifty seven he volunteered to fight in the First World War and this also became material for his art as he produced a series of lithographs depicting scenes from World War One and his own first hand experience of the war. One particularly well known lithograph is entitled ‘Stalemate at the Western Front. Defeat at Home.’ It shows an Officer being told off by a woman, who seems to be his wife. It has been said that this is a self portrait of Louis himself. Apparently some said he joined up to get away from his own domestic problems.

He commanded a section of fighting troops during the war and was awarded the Legion of Honor and La Croix de Guerre. He sadly died whilst carrying out his military service in the last few months of the war. Following his death a number of his paintings were exhibited at the Salon D’Autome in an exhibition entitled ‘Artists who died for their country’.

Paintings by Louis Abel-Truchet are sought after, paintings of Parisian life as depicted by him are particularly in demand. It is always possible of course that during the first world he produced illustrations which he gave to his fellow soldiers.

Louis Abel-Truchet was born in Versailles on December 29, 1857. He was the student of Jules Lefebvre and Benjamin Constant at the Julian Academy in Paris. Abel-Truchet specialized in painting scenes of history, genre, landscapes, and portraits. He mainly worked in oils, pastels, and also as an engraver. His landscapes were commonly of Paris, notably Monmartre; Venice; Padua; Sienna; Marseille; Monte Carlo; and Avignon. In 1891 he began to exhibit his works in various salons, notably the Salons d’Automne; the Salon des Artistes Français; and at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, where he became a member of the society in 1910. Two of his figurative paintings were included in an exhibition of artists who had died for their country, at the Salon d’Automne in 1919.

Few artists develop a style so readily recognized by the public as that of Huldah.  This universally popular, prize-winning American artist captured the essence of Impressionism in modern terms while recreating a time and place in history that has a particular fascination – La Belle Epoque.

Dating back to the turn of the century, it was a time when beautiful women were immortalized and charm was the personification of propriety, while the art of gracious living reached new heights of elegance.  The Edwardian influence, Sarah Bernhardt, Boldini, Sargent, the Ballet Russe all have a place in the romance of the period.  In the background hovered civil unrest, social change, revolutionary concepts in the arts and literature, along with the ferment that would shortly erupt into the First World War.  With that cataclysm, La Belle Epoque, and what it stood for, passed into history, to be revivified only through the work of an artist like Huldah.

Motivated by her travels to Europe and her belief in the influence of the past, Huldah achieved the almost impossible task of reconstructing the pictorial beauty of those idyllic days.  She did so by turning her attention to enchanting young ladies, admired in their day for their beauty, grace and femininity.  Parisian girls, ballerinas and children are part of her technique, influenced by the Impressionists, yet distinctively her own, she caught every nuance, every coquetry, every delicate line needed in the portrayal of the eternally young female.  Special attention is placed on authenticity.  Through the delightful backgrounds of period dress, historic buildings and parks, the viewer passes through a time-tunnel to an age when the art of living was indeed an art.

Huldah was born in Dallas, Texas.  She showed an early talent and began painting and studying for her own pleasure with little thought of making a serious career of it.  Sent by her prominent family to study in New York, she attended classes at the Grand Central School, graduated to the Art Student’s League and reached the pinnacle by being admitted to the private classes of Robert Brackman, one of America’s foremost portrait painters.

Huldah began her professional career in the early 1940’s.  From 1943 through 1949, she was represented by the noted New York art dealer and collector, Howard Young, who was also one of her important collectors.  In the 1950’s, the Charles Lock Galleries of New York also exhibited her work, while collectors on the west coast, in Texas, Arizona and the entire southwest were introduced to her paintings by the prominent Beverly Hills dealer, Francis Taylor.  With the first public exposure of her work, her paintings were bought almost as quickly as she could paint them.  This pattern of success followed her throughout her entire career.  The indisputable appeal of her style and her talent allowed her to work freely, but because of her success, little time was left for exhibitions.  In 1975, Wally Findlay Galleries in New York presented her first one-woman show.

Acclaimed by serious art critics here and abroad, Huldah had the distinction of having her paintings selected for the Grand Salon of the Salon des Artistes Francais in Paris.  All work for this prestigious show must be approved by a discriminating jury before it is accepted, and for five years Huldah’s paintings secured entry to it.  She won Honorable Mention awards in the Salons of 1948 and 1967.

Huldah’s distinctive style was reproduced in top magazines all over the world, on television and in motion pictures.  She also created ceramics, but perhaps her greatest triumph is that of being the single, largest selling artist for the longest period of time on the New York Graphic Society’s roster.  The Society sold more reproductions of her work than of any other artist, including Picasso and Renoir

Huldah, who combined talent, determination and an intense femininity to achieve her outstanding success, is listed in Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who is the South, Who’s Who in the East, Who’s Who of American Women and the World Who’s Who of Women.  Her paintings are in the collections of the Georgia Museum of Fine Arts, Columbia Museum, Norfolk Museum of Fine Arts, Sheldon Swope Museum of Arts, Cornell Medical Center and the Los Angeles Athletic Club. In 1998, The National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC recognized Huldah and has included her work in their permanent collection.

Georges Binet was born April 30, 1865 in Le Havre.  An undisciplined student, Binet was interested in everything, but worried little about grades.  He enjoyed mathematics and science, and was drawn to chemistry, astronomy, and paleontology, but was always especially fascinated by drawing and painting.  He sketched continuously – recording the people and scenes that he saw. By the age of 14, his parents recognized his extraordinary talent and Binet left secondary school to begin studies at the L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts du Havre under the tutelage of a local artist, L’Huiller.

At 18, he went to Paris and was admitted into the workshop of Raphael Collin. Binet took full advantage of the city, spending hours in the museums and passing time with other young artists. However, his service was required by the army and he left Paris for Latour-Maubourg.

Upon his discharge, he immediately resumed his painting at the workshop of Fernand Cormon, one of the premiere professors of L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Binet remained with Cormon for several years and his influence can be seen in his earlier canvases. He began exhibiting at the Salon des Artistes Français and le Salon de l’Epoque and was visited by publishers and editors from the newspapers. In 1900, Paris hosted the Exposition Universelle. Binet, the painter, had evolved.  His paintings swarmed with light and with life – everything vibrated.  In 1904, he received a gold medal from the Salon.

The following year, Binet faced tragedy – his father died, prompting the young man to leave Paris and return to Le Havre to be with his mother and establish an atelier of his own.

The move did not impede his work, however, and Binet continued to paint and achieve success in Le Havre. In 1912, he received two gold medals from the Salon and received the honors, with his wife at his side, by the President of the Republic Fallieries. In 1920, Binet exhibited at the Grand Palais au Salon and at the Cercle Volnay; he continued to participate annually in both exhibitions. In 1930, the newspaper Illustration published several color pages of beaches by Georges Binet. In 1937, he was honored as Chevalier of the Legion of Honor for his works. The city of Le Havre commissioned a large triptych of the town for its City Hall.  The work was completed in 1938, but was destroyed during the bombardment of World War II.

At the end of World War II, despite having fled his home and reaching old age, Binet continued to paint and returned to Normandy and Paris.  At the age of 83, he painted his last picture – a large floral – before he died on July 9, 1949.  Shortly before his death, he said to his son, Jean-Georges, “I had a magnificent life and I achieved what I wanted to.  My profession has been the most beautiful, the most fascinating and the most independent there is.”

James Webb was a painter of marine and landscape subjects. He was born and lived all his life in Chelsea, London.

Webb painted scenes in England, Wales, Holland, France and along the Rhine.  He painted figures and buildings with as much competence as he did landscapes..  His paintings have a feeling of tranquility and harmony to them.  Webb used pale colors, but painted in a robust naturalistic style. Webb cannot be readily assigned to any one school. He depicted his own subjective relationship to a landscape in delicate brushwork, bathing the scene in soft light. He was particularly drawn to overseas locations, such as Constantinople (now Istanbul), Turkey and Mont Saint-Michel, France. He was influenced by J. M. W. Turner.

He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1853 and 1888 as well as at the British Institution, Suffolk Street, The Royal Institute of Oil Painters, the New Watercolour Society, Grosvenor Gallery, the Royal Society of Artists Gallery and various other venues.  His works are represented at The Tate, The Victoria and Albert Museum and all the important museums in England.

James Webb came from a very artistic family.  His father, Archibald Webb, was also a landscape painter who painted a famous picture of the Battle of Trafalgar.  His brother, Byron Webb, was a London painter of animals who specialized in Highland deer, horse portraits and hunting and skating scenes.

The sensitive, subtle beautiful paintings by Vietnamese artist, Le Pho are a fascinating blending of Oriental artistry with influences of contemporary Western art. For the most part this artist specialized in semi-Impressionist studies of flowers and figures and handled them with delicacy and an unusually fluid transparency of color.

Early Years of Le Pho’s Art Career

In his early years, Le Pho preferred painting on silk instead of canvas, and to do so, developed a technique all his own. He then painted on canvas, and even on this sturdier material he achieved great richness and a completely unique surface texture, which suggests the delicacy of the silk formerly used.

Le Pho’s artwork has a distinctive elegance, along with imagination and artistry, which immediately suggests a background of culture and taste. Consequently, one is not surprised to learn that he was the son of the Viceroy of Tonkin (Viet Nam) and that his first one-man show in Paris was considered sufficiently important to be sponsored by the Embassy of Indo-China.

Le Pho’s Early Life

Born in Vietnam on August 2, 1907, Le Pho had a cosmopolitan background even as a young art student. He first studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts of Hanoi for five years from 1925 to 1930, and then at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris during the following two years.

In 1933 on his return to Hanoi he was appointed professor in the Hanoi Ecole des Beaux-Arts, a post that he held from 1933 to 1936. While studying in Paris he had the good fortune of being a student of Victor Tardieu who during his art student days had been a friend and companion of Matisse.

Le Pho’s Life in Paris

Le Pho’s professorship in Hanoi came to an end when he was sent back to Paris in 1937 as a delegate to the International Exposition in Paris and served also as a member of the jury of this Exposition. Since that time, Le Pho remained a resident of Paris. His first one-man show there in 1938 was the first step toward his subsequent active and important painting career in Europe.

Recent Years

In recent years he had numerous one-man shows in Paris, Nice, Lyon, Strasbourg, Nantes, Rouen, Brest, Algiers, Casablanca, Brussels, Caracas and Buenos Aires, as well as in New York and San Francisco. Also he served as artistic advisor to the Embassy of Viet Nam in Paris; had been a prizewinner in the International Exhibition of Beaux-Arts of Saigon; and had become an annual exhibitor at the Salon d’Automne and the Salon des Indépendants in Paris.

His paintings are already in the permanent collection of the Musée d’Art Moderne of Paris as well as in the collections of numerous French museums outside Paris.

It was at Bouville, on the 12 of June 1878, which was born Narcisse Guilbert, from a very modest family.

The young Narcisse enters with 17 years of age at École des Beaux-Arts of Rouen, and later at the Free Academy of Delattre. He will frequently return to paint on the same spots where Delattre taught him.

In 1910, he stays in Brittany, makes some incursions to Paris and it is on the Norman beaches, in particular in Etretat, that he will paint around 1920 his most beautiful marine landscapes.

In 1920, at Rue Marboeuf, took place the only exhibition realized in Paris before the one organized in 1969 by the Galerie Watteau. Narcisse Guilbert is undoubtedly one of the most gifted landscape painters of Rouen by his acute sense of light, the beauty of his colors and his very great sensitivity.

“Dufy is a pleasure”, said Gertrude Stein, reducing to three words all that people have said about Dufy and, in essence, what Raoul Dufy said about himself.  For in all of Dufy’s art there is a charm, spontaneity, a grace and a joie de vivre that refuses the ugly, the sordid, the sad.

Raoul Dufy was born in 1877 in Le Havre and was one of the eldest of nine children. Despite his father being a man of modest means, Dufy was forced to cut his education short in order to learn a trade. However, he managed to squeeze in art classes at the Ecole des Beaux-Artes of Le Havre under the tutelage of Charles Lhullier who, to teach his students the importance of good draftsmanship, refused to let them use color – the element which became such a vital part of Dufy’s art. His artistic studies would inspire his younger brother, Jean, to pursue art as well, who likewise enrolled in the Beaux-Arts of Le Havre, and eventually followed Raoul to Paris.

In 1900, after a year of military service, and thanks to a scholarship, Dufy was able to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he imbued himself with the art of the Impressionists and later with that of the fauves whose movement he joined; their use of bold color and strong design suited his own inclinations.  In 1906 he had his first one-man show, and then, through his friendship with George Braque, he fell temporarily under the influence of the Cubists whose emphasis on structure, analysis and synthesis sobered the explosive quality of his art.

In about 1910, Dufy began to work in other artistic mediums, illustrating books, producing prints, and designing textiles for a famous silk manufacturer, all of which strengthened his feeling for color and free design.  He also designed stage sets and tapestries and began working in ceramics.  But it was during the 1920’s that the Raoul Dufy whom we all know came into being.  His inborn serenity and natural gaiety expressed themselves in oils and watercolors of people enjoying themselves – on the seashore, at the racetrack, in a garden – or in scenes from surroundings in which he reveled – ports of Normandy, landscapes of southern France, the stage of a concert hall.  Using rapid, curving brushstrokes which permitted him to capture the spontaneity of the movement and vivid light-filled colors, which in their enthusiasm, leapt over the dark outlines of an object.  Dufy poured forth his view of life, which bespoke beauty, optimism, pleasure and happiness.

In the 1930’s Raoul Dufy began exhibiting often and winning prizes. His works now hang in museums the world over.  His first trip to the United States occurred in 1937, and he returned again in 1950.  By then he was already severely crippled by arthritis, but undaunted, he continued painting, turning out numerous water colors of American scenes – from New England to Arizona – during his months here.  Then he returned to the South of France where the brilliance and color of life inspired him until his death on March 23, 1953.

Born at Monfort-sur-Risle, Albert Lebourg entered the École des Beaux-Arts of Rouen at a very young age. He was noticed in Rouen by the collector Laperlier who referred him to be appointed as a drawing professor at the Société des Beaux-Arts in Algiers. He was influenced there by Jean Seignemartin who helped him bring more clarity and light into his paintings. He married in 1873; the young couple remained in Algiers until the summer of 1877 when Lebourg resigned his teaching post and returned to Paris with numerous canvases of the Admiralty, the casbah and mosques.

Lebourg exhibited 30 works in the Fourth Impressionist Exhibition of 1879, with Monet, Pissarro and Degas, featuring many of the paintings and drawings executed in Algiers. In 1880 he participated in the Fifth Impressionist Exhibition with 20 works of Rouen, Paris and Algiers. In 1883 he was admitted to the Paris Salon with his painting Matinée à Dieppe. In 1887 he exhibited in the famous “XX” exhibition which debuted Seurat’s magnum opus  “Un Dimanche à Grand Jatte.”

The Seine in the outskirts of Paris, with its countless subjects, kept Lebourg occupied in all seasons. He continued to paint in Auvergne, Normandy, and Ile de France. From 1888 to 1895, Lebourg settled in Puteaux, where he availed himself to the surroundings of Paris. He wrote at the time: “I will paint often at the banks of the Seine: Nanterre, Rueil, Chatou, Bougival, Port-Marly. These are a source of themes and very beautiful landscapes”. At that time, he painted what he regarded as his best paintings.

He moved to the Netherlands in 1895-1897 exhibiting with the Mancini Gallery in Paris to great acclaim. In 1900 he won the Silver Medal at the Exhibition Internationale Universelle. In 1903 a retrospective was organized featuring 111 works at the Gallerie Rosenberg. He continued to exhibit at the Nationale Salon annually with his fame firmly established by 1910. Yet another retrospective was organized in Paris by 1918.

In September of 1920 he suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. Nevertheless he remarried the next February in 1921! A Catalogue Raisonné was organized that year that included 2,137 works and was released in 1923, which garnered united praise by the press.

The year of 1926 bid farewell to the last of the great impressionists: Charles Angrand, Mary Cassatt and Claude Monet; in 1927: Albert Guillaumin. Albert Lebourg died in Rouen on January 7, 1928.

Albert Lebourg’s works are in many museums: the Musee d’Orsay, Petit-Palais and Carnavalet in Paris, as well as museums in: Bayonne, Clermont-Ferrand, Le Havre, Dunkerque, Lille, Strasbourg, Sceaux and above all Rouen (Depeaux collection).

Frederick Childe Hassam was born in Dorchester, Massachusetts in 1859. In 1876, Hassam was apprenticed to a local wood engraver, where he became a freelance illustrator soon thereafter. In the evenings he attended the life class at the Boston Art Club, then briefly studied anatomy with William Rimmer at the Lowell Institute, a division of MIT, and took private lessons from the German-born painter Ignaz Gaugengigl.

In 1883, Childe Hassam traveled to Great Britain, Holland, Spain, and Italy, where he produced a large number of watercolors that were exhibited at the Williams and Everett Gallery in Boston later that year. Once home, in 1884, Hassam married Kathleen Maude Doane and lived in Boston until the spring of 1886, when the couple left for Europe. In Paris, Hassam studied figure painting with Lucien Dorcet, Gustave Boulanger, and Jules-Joseph Lefebvre at the Académie Julian, and exhibited his work at the Salons of 1887 and 1888. In 1889 the Hassams returned to the United States and settled in New York. Hassam subsequently assisted in founding the New York Watercolor Club and joined the Pastel Society of New York. He also began to exhibit with the Society of American Artists.

In 1897 he was a founder of The Ten  – A group of American painters from New York and Boston who exhibited together from 1898-1919. They had been members of the Society of American Artists, but resigned from this organization upon deciding that its exhibitions were too too large and conservative. Most of the Ten had studied in Paris in the 1880s and were greatly influenced by French Impressionism. The Ten were were: Thomas E. Dewing (1851-1938), Edward E. Simmons (1852-1931), Julien Alden Weir (1852-1919), John Henry Twachtman (1853-1902), Joseph R. De Camp (1858-1923), Willard L. Metcalf (1858-1925), Childe Hassam (1859-1935), Frank Benson (1862-1951), Robert Reid (1862-1929), and Edmund C. Tarbell (1862-1938); with William Merritt Chase (American, 1849-1916) taking the place of Twachtman upon his death. Although their art was not particularly radical, they were important in the context of modern art in helping to establish a tradition of setting up exhibiting organizations independent of official bodies, foreshadowing the Armory Show.

During the 1890s and the following two decades, Childe Hassam spent his summers painting throughout New England. His favorite sites were Old Lyme, Connecticut, and Appledore, on the Isles of Shoals, off the coast of New Hampshire, where he produced some of his best known works.

A prolific and industrious artist, Hassam numerous scenes of his paintings featured both the city and the countryside. Many of his early street scenes include Boston, Paris, and New York, with their reflections of wet pavement or of gaslight on the snow, evidenced a talent for capturing the effects of light and atmosphere.

Childe Hassam is famous for his series of twenty-two flag paintings, which he began in 1916, when he was inspired by a “Preparedness Parade”, for World War I,  held on Fifth Avenue in New York. Monet, among other French artists, had also painted flag-themed works, but Hassam’s have a different, distinctly American character. They all depict Fifth Aveue, Fifty-Seventh Street, or streets near Hassam’s gallery at the time, which was on West Fifty-Seventh Street. The Metropolitan Museum, the New-York Historical Society and the National Gallery of Art all own a Hassam flag painting.

Throughout his career Hassam garnered numerous awards and prizes and earned the attention of the collectors George A. Hearn, John Gellatly, and Charles Freer. His work was widely exhibited throughout the country, and in the 1913 Armory Show Hassam was represented by six paintings, five pastels, and a drawing. About 1915 he turned to printmaking, producing etchings and drypoints first, and lithographs about two years later. By 1933 a catalogue raisonné of his intaglio prints listed 376 different plates. Toward the end of his life Hassam most often exhibited graphic works.

Childe Hassam had purchased a home in East Hampton in 1819 and he died there in 1935. Shortly before his death he arranged to bequeath all the paintings remaining in his studio to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. According to his wish they were sold to establish a fund for the purchase of American works to be donated to museums.

Bradberry was born on March 29th, 1878 in Maromme, which is located 10 miles west of Rouen. His father was British and kept his nationality even though his mother was French. They both lived in Saint-Saens. At the age of 19, Bradberry attended classes at L’Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Rouen. He chose delicate techniques to express his art such as with watercolors and pastels. In 1898, he exposed three watercolors and one pastel at the Salon Municipale. In June 1902, Bradberry got married and became a wealthy man. Being good friends with Delattre, Suzanne, and Madelaine, he was able to participate in the creation of the Societe des Artistes Rouennais where he exposed his work for the first time in 1907. In 1910, he became vice president for four years. He organized the most important private exhibition of his career where he exposed 44 pastels.

During World War I, a large number of his works were lost or destroyed, but in 1929, some of his pieces that were exposed at the Salon des Artistes Rouennais were rediscovered.

Extremely independent, Bradberry liked to be surrounded by nature and above all enjoyed hiking in Normandy and in the Britany countryside.

At the end of World War II, he continued painting some landscapes in a remarkable and charming way. The tones of his palette are quite harmonious with a light atmosphere that radiates out of his work. The artist represented full control of his talent.

Bradberry lived a semester at Saint-Ceneri, and came back to Rouen where he died in 1959.