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Eugène Galien-Laloue (French, 1854–1941)

Timeline

1871: Lied about his age by a year in order to enlist in the army for the Prussian war
1874: Employed by the French Railway lines as an illustrator
1877: Became a member of the Artistes Francais
: Eugene Galien-Laloue, the celebrated painter of Parisian street scenes, was born in Paris in December 1854. Having studied under Charles Laloue he made his exhibiting debut at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1877 and continued to show his works there with great success throughout his life. Although primarily a painter of Parisian scenes, he also executed a few landscapes of Normandy and the Seine-et-Marne region and in 1914 made a number of illustrations of military scenes. Due to contractual obligations with dealers he often signed his more personal oils of this type under the pseudonyms Galiani and Lieven. He achieved considerable fame within his own lifetime, and in recent years his paintings, and especially his works in gouache, have enjoyed an international resurgence in popularity. In December 1986 the exceptional price of nearly £45,000 was achieved by a French auction house for a gouache measuring just 7 x 12 in entitled Le Théatre du Gymnase.