Uber den Künstler

Eugene Carriere (Gournay, Seine-et-Oise, 1849 - Parijs, 1906) was a French painter and printmaker. He started his education in art at the École Municipale de Dessan in Strasbourg as part of his apprenticeship in commercial lithography. In 1868, while briefly employed as a lithographer, he visited Paris and inspired by the paintings of Rubens in the Louvre he decided to become an artist. He studied under Alexandre Cabanel at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. In 1878 he exhibited in the Salon but his work went unnoticed. The following year he ended his apprenticeship under Cabanel, married and moved briefly to London, admiring the works of Turner. When he returned to Paris he was unsuccessful for a number of years and he was forced to find occasional employment until as late as 1889. By the mid-1880s Carrière’s work was characterized by a dense brown atmosphere out of which the images emerged, influenced by the painterly technique of his contemporary Jean-Jacques Henner.

At the Salon of 1884 one of Carrière’s paintings received an honourable mention and thereafter Carrière found friends in most of the important artists, critics, writers and collectors of his time. Carrière became an important figure in the Symbolist movement, which developed in the visual arts from the mid-1880s. Symbolist critics such as Charles Morice and Jean Dolent were particularly appealed to the dreamlike atmosphere in Carrière’s paintings. Carrière also frequented the Café Voltaire and was involved in Symbolist theatre. He received many honours during his career and was a founder member of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and of the Salon d’ Automne. When he passed away in 1906, major exhibitions were held by the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and the Salon d’ Automne. A large collection of his work can be found in The Musée de’ Orsay in Paris.
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