Leon Augustin LHermitte

Leon Augustin LHermitte (French 1844-1925)

The only son of a village schoolmaster, Leon LHermittes precocious drawing skill won him an annual grant from the state.  In 1863, he went to Paris and became a student at the Petite Ecole.  Jean-Charles Cazin, a fellow pupil, became a lifelong friend, and LHermitte later got to know Alphonse Legros, Henri Fantin-Latour, Jules Dalou and Auguste Rodin, who had all studied at the school.  In 1864 his charcoal drawing the Banks of the Marne near Alfort was exhibited at the Salon; he continued to exhibit his drawings at the Salon until 1889.

In 1871 Legros introduced him to the dealer Durand-Ruel, who agreed to sell several of his drawings.  In 1873, Durand-Ruel sent some of LHermittes works to the Dudley Gallery for the first of the annual Black and White exhibitions and LHermitte subsequently became a regular participant.   LHermitte won a third-class medal in the Salon of 1874 for his painting The Harvest, which was bought by the state.  The Tavern, exhibited in the Salon of 1881, initiated the monumental series of paintings on the life of the agricultural worker that came closest to justifying van Goghs admiring appellation "Millet the Second".  The next in the series, Harvesters Payday became the artists best-known work. 

LHermitte was a founding member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890.  In 1894 he was made an officer of the Legion d Honneur.  Later, LHermitte was elected to fill Jacques Henners chair in painting at the Institut. He continued to exhibit in the first decades of the 20th century, when he was generally seen as a relic of a bygone era, although his style later had an influence on Socialist Realism. 

Increasingly he worked in pastel, his draughtsmans skill ever in evidence, producing some sensitive portraits and peasant scenes reminiscent of the earlier and more powerful depictions that van Gogh had cited as an ideal.  His pastels are part of the growing use of pastels in France in the latter half of the nineteenth century, used especially well by the Impressionist group. 

LHermitte was said to have begun experimenting in pastels in 1885, just one year before he exhibited for the first time at the Société des Pastellistes Français held at the Georges Petit gallery in Paris.  Here he submitted a dozen pastels which depicted daily life in the areas of Mont-Saint-Père and also his travel to Vittel, Berneval, Laren, and Wissant. LHermitte was one of the most important proponents for acceptance of the pastel.  He continually exhibited his work at these exhibitions and helped forge a new group, that of the pastellistes, where he became a mentor for younger artists. 


Museum Collections Include:

Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin; Goteborg Art Gallery, Sweden; Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, MA; Melton Park Gallery, Oklahoma City; Oklahoma City Art Museum, OK; Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, WI; Ashmolean Museum, Oxford; Musee dOrsay, Paris; Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia; Reading Public Museum and Art Gallery, PA; Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, NY; Museum of Fine Art, Saintes, France; Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, San Antonio; Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, MO; National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo; Toledo Museum of Art, OH; Art Gallery, Ontario; Art Institute of Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Cleveland Museum of Art, OH; Denver Museum of Art, CO

 Works

French Landscape with Village×

Pastel
13 x 10 inch
33 x 25.4 cm