HENRI FANTIN-LATOUR

At the age of ten, Henri Fantin-Latour began painting with his father, Théodore Fantin-Latour (1805-1875). In 1850, he left Grenoble and moved to Paris to study under Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, an innovative and non-traditional instructor who developed and published his own unique teaching method based on painting and drawing from memory. Fantin-Latour studied with him for six years before attending the École des Beaux-Arts for less than a year in 1854. Encouraged by the renowned J.A.M. Whistler, whom he met in 1858 at the Louvre, Fantin-Latour made several trips to London from 1859 to 1881, where he exhibited at the Royal Academy. London collectors appreciated his still lifes, and he began accepting numerous portrait commissions from English patrons. In an effort to become better known in France, Fantin-Latour also exhibited with his friend Edouard Manet and future impressionists Jean Renoir and Claude Monet. Unlike the realists and the impressionists, Fantin did not paint out of doors, as he preferred literary subjects, still lifes, and portraits that could be painted in his studio. Fantin-Latour’s flower paintings were particularly appreciated in England, where, through James McNeill Whistler and Sir John Everett Millais, Fantin-Latour found a patron in Edwin Edwards. A wealthy amateur engraver, he supported Fantin-Latour for years by purchasing his still lifes. The last period of Fantin-Latour’s life was primarily devoted to lithography. In the Salon of 1876 he exhibited “L’Anniversaire”, honoring composer Hector Berlioz, and thereafter his lithographs were shown regularly. Most characteristic were his delicate portraits and imaginative drawings illustrative of the music of Richard Wagner, Berlioz, and others. He also illustrated Adolphe Jullien’s biographies of Wagner (1886) and Berlioz (1888). The artworks of Henri Fantin-Latour are represented in private and museum collections throughout the world.