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Eugène Henri Cauchois (French, 1850-1911)
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Eugène Henri Cauchois
Still Life with Pansies and Peonies
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Biography |
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Awards:
1898-1st Class Medal
1900-Bronze Medal
1904-2nd Class Medal |
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Collections;
Louviers
Rouen
Perpignan |
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A promising show of youthful talent encouraged the young Cauchois to leave his native Rouen to study at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris, becoming a pupil first of Ferdinand Duboc. His subsequent master was the distinguished painter Alexandre Cabannel (1824-1889), who was among the most highly regarded artists of fashionable mid-19th Century Paris. Cauchois, as a pupil, would have assisted his master in working on great decorative panels for Paris’s most fashionable noble houses, as well as the palace of Emperor Napoleon III, for whom he was Court painter, and the Empress Eugénie. |
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From Cabannel, Cauchois learned a sense of scale and handling work in the grand manner never presented any fears for him. Indeed, he excelled at painting large decorative canvases, usually depicting Nature in all her glory. He made still life his speciality, using fruit, vegetables, game, gardens; sometimes clocks, vases and other artefacts, and set occasionally within a landscape. The vast majority of his pictures, however, are floral compositions, with roses, chrysanthemums, peonies, larkspur, hollyhocks and all manner of wild flowers amassing into a strong statement of fresh, lively colour. |
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His first painting to be accepted for exhibition was at the Salon of 1874 and thereafter he exhibited his work widely. Elected to membership of the Société des Artistes Français in 1890, his work was of prize medal-winning calibre. In 1898 he won a third, in 1900 he won a bronze medal, and with one of his exhibits in 1904, he won a second prize medal. It was during these years of success that his decorative flower painting reached its peak. One of his best known works was done ‘in situ’ in a Paris école: a magnificent series of panels depicting the flowers of all the seasons. |
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Today his work is very well regarded, in particular the still life subjects, which surpass a simple flower arrangement in a vase, to become a pleasing and flowing composition with a profusion of flowers, set against nature which produced them. |
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His paintings can be seen in the museums of Louviers, Perpignan, Aux Halles and Rouen, as well as in the school of the VIIe arondissement in Paris, where the artist once executed an enchanting series of paintings portraying floral arrangements varying according to the seasons. |
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Museums: Louviers; Aux Halles; Gallerie Roussel; Perpignan; Rouen |
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Exhibitions |
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Paris Salon
Saint-Etienne Salon
Dijon Salon
Daniel Grossman-gallery exhibition |
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Literature |
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Dictionnaire des Petits Maitres de la Peinture 1820-1920 by Gerald Schurr & Pierre Cabanne, pg. 240-241, Tome I, A a H |
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Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres |
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Schurr |
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Hardouin-Fugier |
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Thieme & Becker |
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