French male painters

Pierre-Nolasque_Bergeret

Pierre-Nolasque Bergeret (30 January 1782, Bordeaux – 21 February 1863, Paris) was a French painter, pioneer lithographer and designer of medals and costumes for the stage, who studied with Jacques-Louis David.
He was born in Bordeaux, where he received his early training, then moved to Paris, where he worked in the ateliers of François-André Vincent and then Jacques-Louis David, where he met François Marius Granet and Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres.The high point of his early career was marked by one painting in particular, shown at the Salon of 1806 and considered by Bergeret among his greatest works. Reminiscent of both Poussin and David, the "Homage Rendered to Raphael on His Deathbed"(engraved in 1812 by J.L. Charles Pauquet) was praised by critics for its mood of restrained emotion as well as denigrated by some for the heaviness of its figures. The Emperor Napoleon I purchased "Homage" for his wife, the Empress Josephine, and subsequently it was hung in the gallery of her residence at Malmaison. At some point the painting was removed, stored away, sold, and eventually was purchased for the collection of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin, Ohio. A second version of the painting, likely autograph and previously believed to be the original Salon version, exists and is now found at Malmaison.
Bergeret played a major role in introducing lithography, in part through his reproductive prints after paintings by Nicolas Poussin and Raphael: his lithograph Mercury (1804), reproducing a detail from Raphael’s fresco in the Villa Farnesina, and his caricatures of current Paris fashion, e.g. Les Musards de la Rue du Coq, Le Suprême Bon Ton Actuel (by 1805) are among the earliest examples of lithographic technique.Bergeret was commissioned to design Napoleonic medals, or provide frieze-like panels en camaïeu to be painted on Sèvres porcelains and to provide designs for the bas-reliefs on the Column in the Place Vendôme, built 1806–11 and directly inspired by Trajan's Column in Rome. The Column suffered the vicissitudes of French politics, having been destroyed and restored twice.
Bergeret too, having led a successful career during the first Empire, was increasingly caught up in artistic rivalries and disputes with government officials of the Bourbon Restoration, which eventually led to his decline. His long standing contract to provide costume designs for the Opera Comique in Paris ended in a protracted lawsuit, which he eventually lost. He had the bad luck to cross the Comte de Forbin, Vivant-Denon's successor as director of the Louvre, who did little to further Bergeret's career, even actively working against him. Bergeret's efforts to win public commissions (such as the ceiling of the Bordeaux Opera House) often fell through due to ill fate as well as political machinations and person intrigues against him. Increasingly in debt and without commissions or patrons, in 1848, Bergeret published his "Lettres d'un artiste sur l'etat des arts en France" an attempt to vindicate himself in which he set out his views regarding the artistic bureaucracy in France, exposing the various problems that it presented to talented artists (such as himself). Bergeret, once in the forefront of artistic trends and technology found himself sidelined from royal and imperial patronage and national influence. He painted little of importance during his final years and died embittered and empoverished.
The subjects of his paintings tend towards the vividly anecdotal. He was early among artists drawing subject matter from the culture of the Renaissance, in the style Troubadour: Honors Rendered to Raphael on His Deathbed 1806 (Allen Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio). Charles V Picking up Titian's Brush 1808; Anne Boleyn Condemned to Death ca. 1814 (Musée du Louvre); Aretino in the Studio of Titian ca 1822; Fra Lippo Lippi Enslaved in Tangiers, Painting a Portrait of His Captor ca 1819; Another major history painting by Bergeret is Marius Meditating on the Ruins of Carthage.
Other typical subjects are propagandistic allegories and representations of current events of the French Empire.

Henri_Biva

Henri Biva (23 January 1848 – 2 February 1929) was a French artist, known for his landscape paintings and still lifes. He focused primarily on the western suburbs of Paris, painting outdoors in the plein-air tradition; his style ranging between Post-Impressionism and Realism with a strong Naturalist component. Biva's pictures are characterized by intricate strokes and a pure palette bathed with warm natural light (Biva devoted great attention to light effects). The artist was a member of the Société des Artistes Français and a Knight of the Legion of Honour (Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur).

Adrien_Dauzats

Adrien Dauzats (16 July 1804 – 18 February 1868) was a French landscape, genre painter and painter of Oriental subject matter. He travelled extensively throughout the Middle East and illustrated a number of books for the travel writer, Baron Taylor.

Armand_Séguin_(painter)

Armand Séguin (1869–1903) was a post-Impressionist French painter who is remembered for his involvement in the Pont-Aven School beginning in 1891. In 1892, he returned to Pont-Aven where he met Renoir and Émile Bernard. The following year, he associated with Paul Gauguin, who gave him lessons, and collaborated with Roderic O'Conor in producing etchings.He died in Châteauneuf-du-Faou at the age of 34, a destitute alcoholic who was suffering from tuberculosis.He was a grandson of chemist Armand Séguin.

Jacques_Raverat

Jacques Pierre Paul Raverat (pronounced Rav-er-ah) (20 March 1885 – 6 March 1925) was a French painter; Raverat was the son of Georges Pierre Raverat and Helena Lorena Raverat, née Caron; he was born in Paris, France, in 1885.
Raverat started at Bedales School in Steep, Hampshire in 1898. From Bedales, he went up to Jesus College, Cambridge.He married the English painter and wood engraver Gwen Darwin, in 1911, the daughter of George Darwin and Lady Maud Darwin, née Maud du Puy; she was a granddaughter of Charles Darwin. They had two daughters, Elisabeth (1916–2014), who married the Norwegian politician Edvard Hambro, and Sophie Jane (1919–2011) who married the Cambridge scholar M. G. M. Pryor and later Charles Gurney. Raverat suffered from a form of multiple sclerosis and died on 6 March 1925, following complications of it. His funeral took place in Christ Church in Cannes, France, where he may be buried.
Before moving, in 1920, to Vence in France the couple were active members of an intellectual circle known as the "Neo-Pagans" and centred on Rupert Brooke. They also moved on the fringes of the Bloomsbury Group, whose members included Virginia Woolf, John Maynard Keynes, Vanessa Bell and Lytton Strachey.
In 2004, his grandson, William Pryor edited the complete correspondence between Raverat, his wife and Virginia Woolf which was published as Virginia Woolf and the Raverats.

Ylipe

Philippe Labarthe, pseudonym Ylipe (9 January 1936 – 8 March 2003) was a French humorist, artist, and writer.He was born in Bordeaux and studied Fine Arts there before moving to Paris to work as a cartoonist, painter and aphorist. He signed his cartoons φlipe, using the Greek letter phi (φ) in place of the first three letters of his forename. Maurice Nadeau misread the Greek φ as a Latin y and the name Ylipe stuck.In the 1960s he contributed to Arts, L'Express, and Lettres nouvelles, and signed the Manifesto of the 121 opposing the use of torture during the Algerian War. He later exhibited paintings in New York and Paris under his own name, with backing from Eugène Ionesco and Jacques Prévert.In 2000, a back injury prevented him painting and he returned to writing aphorisms. His writing and painting often exhibit black humour; Dominique Noguez described him as a "sparkling misanthrope" (French: misanthrope étincelant). He died of lung cancer, having refused medical treatment.