French painter🎨 Henri Eugène Augustin Le Sidaner (1862-1939) was born 157 years ago on this day - August 7th 1862, into a French family, in Port Louis, Mauritius.
He studied under Alexandre Cabanel🎨 until 1885 and was introduced to the work of Edouard Manet🎨 who influenced Le Sidaner’s artistic development.
Henri Le Sidaner was one such individual: a contemporary of the Post-Impressionists who painted in dots but was not a Pointillist🎨; revelled in complementary colours but was not a Fauve; and drew a veil of dreams over reality but was not a Symbolist🎨, or only briefly.
He was, as his friend the critic Gabriel Mourey described him, "a sort of mystic who has no faith".
When asked what school he belonged to, his own reply was: "..one. But if you absolutely insist on categorising me, I am an intimist"!
He received prominence and was regularly given solo shows in Paris, London, Brussels and the United States.
In 1930 he was made a professor at the Academie des Beaux-Arts, replacing Ernest Laurent, and was named its president in 1937.
Henri Le Sidanar’s work is included in the museum collections of Phillips Collection, Washington, D.C.; Detroit Intsitute of the Arts, MI; Musee d’Art Modern, Paris; Museum of Modern Art, Rome; Nelson Atkins Museum, Kansas City; Ashmolean Musem, Oxford; Phoenix Art Musem, AZ; Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and The Tate Collection, England.
Distinction: Officier de la Légion d'honneur.
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