Biography

French painter. Born in Fontenay-aux-Roses. While studying law at the University of Paris, he entered Académie Julian in Paris in 1887, and then École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1889. During those years, he befriended such artists as Maurice Denis and Édouard Vuillard, and participated in the founding of the group Nabis. In the 1890s, he experimented with the appropriation of ukiyo-e print expressions in such formats as posters, illustrations for publications, and decorative panels. In 1891, he left his job in law and devoted his time to painting. In 1907, after his first trip to southern France, he began to paint landscapes, basing his creative activity in both the suburbs of Paris and southern France. From 1910, he began pursuing the beauty of colors themselves, using subjects of familiar scenes, such as interiors, gardens, and his wife Marthe bathing. He was referred to as a “painter of color.”