Georges Rochegrosse Explained

Georges Rochegrosse
Birth Name:Georges-Antoine-Marie Rochegrosse
Birth Date:2 August 1859
Birth Place:Versailles, France
Death Place:El Biar, Algeria
Resting Place:Montparnasse Cemetery
Education:Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger in Paris
Known For:Painter, illustrator, poster artist, and etcher
Movement:Orientalist
Spouse:Marie Leblond
Awards:Officer of the Legion of Honor (1892)

Georges Antoine Rochegrosse (in French ʒɔʁʒ ɑ̃twan ʁɔʃɡʁɔs/; 2 August 1859  - 11 July 1938) was a French historical and decorative painter.

Life and career

He was born in Versailles and studied in Paris with Jules Joseph Lefebvre and Gustave Clarence Rodolphe Boulanger.[1] His themes are generally historical, and he treated them on a colossal scale and in an emotional naturalistic style, with a distinct revelling in horrible subjects and details.

He made his Paris Salon début in 1882 with (Vitellius dragged through the streets of Rome by the people) (1882; Sens). He followed this the year afterwards with Andromaque (1882–83; Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen), which won that year's prestigious Prix du Salon. There followed La Jacquerie (1885; Untraced), La mort de Babylone (The fall of Babylon) (1891; Untraced), The death of the Emperor Geta (1899; Musée de Picardie, Amiens), and Barbarian ambassadors at the Court of Justinian (1907; Untraced), all of which exemplify his strong and spirited but sensational and often brutal painting. In quite another style and beautiful in colour is his Le Chevalier aux Fleurs (The Knight of Flowers) (1894; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; RF 898).

He was elected an Officer of the Legion of Honour in 1892 and received the Medal of Honour in 1906 for The Red Delight. Rochegrosse also illustrated several books. His great love, his wife Marie Rochegrosse (née Leblond), had died in 1920. He lived his final years in El Biar, in Algeria, where he died. He is buried in Paris, in the Montparnasse Cemetery, near the poet Theodore de Banville, his stepfather.

Selected works

PaintingsPosters

Sources

References

  1. Waller, S. (ed.), Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870 - 1914: Strangers in Paradise, Routledge, 2017, p. 119.