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La Touche, Gaston
(b Saint-Cloud, 29 Oct 1854; d Paris, 12 July 1913). French painter and printmaker. A self-taught artist, he was from childhood determined to be a painter and was supported in this ambition by his well-to-do parents. He admired Zola and provided drypoint illustrations for his novel L’Assommoir (1879). His first paintings (1880s) were domestic scenes in the style of the Dutch 17th century. They were vigorous, harsh and sombre and met with no success: he burnt most of them in 1891. The influence of his friend Félix Bracquemond prompted him to discard his early style and to use the colours favoured by the Impressionists; his brushwork is characterized by small, petal-like strokes of colour. In 1890 he showed Phlox and Peonies (untraced), both colourful scenes of women, children and flowers, at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, which brought him immediate success. His fêtes galantes and singeries recall French 18th-century art, and he also specialized in Breton subjects, such as Pardon in Brittany (1896; Chicago, IL, A. Inst.).
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