Léon Bonvin The unknown genius Still Life with Cruets and Vegetables. 1863. Watercolour and ink on paper, 16.5 x 21.3 cm. Walters Art Museum.
ALTHOUGH LÉON BONVIN’S LIFE WAS TOUGH AND MUCH TOO SHORT, HE IS ONE OF THE MOST EMINENT FIGURES OF THE MID-19TH CENTURY FRENCH REALIST MOVEMENT. THE WALTERS ART MUSEUM IN BALTIMORE IS CURRENTLY EXHIBITING HIS WATERCOLOURS.
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On January 30th, Léon Bonvin put his portfolio under his arm and went to see an art dealer hoping to sell a few watercolours. The answer was unequivocal: “Too dark, not gay enough.” The very next day, on the last day of January 1866, he hung himself in Meudon Forest. This talented artist was just 32 years old. Four days later, Léon Bonvin’s body was found near Villebois Pond, at the foot of the tree whose branch had given way under the weight of his body. The very next day, François Bonvin, brother of the deceased, wrote an entreaty to Albert de la Fizelière, the art critic and writer, in which he urged him to organise an auction, the profits of which would go to the painter’s widow and his three children who were now destitute. “The future seemed to him more gloomy than the past, [yet] he was indeed the best and purest of the best. As an artist, one has only to look at his drawings to recognize his worth.”Léon Bonvin was buried in a cemetery on the outskirts of Paris, in an area of unconsecrated ground reserved for those who had taken their own life. And so the short and sad life of this artist, obliged to become an
innkeeper to feed his family, came to an end. Little is known of him and not without reason. During his lifetime, his work was never seen outside a small circle of artists and the friends of his brother who were regulars at the family inn in Vaugirard, which was a humble village surrounded by plains but is now Paris’ bustling XVth arrondissement.
‘A SHEEP ’ S SOUL IN THE BODY OF AN OX ’ His only legacy is his watercolours, which combine disconcerting simplicity and stunning technical mastery, drawings and a few oil paintings. The largest collection of Léon Bovin’s work is at the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. It is quite simple: the artist died too soon and during his life, struggled to find time to paint as he was working to put food on the table for his family. Whilst he was alive, his paintings were never recognised at their true value and contemporary art critics took no interest in him. Léon Bonvin was born in 1834, the fourth child in a family of nine. His father was the W ATERCOLOUR N O .6 / M ARCH -M AY 2012
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