Eugène-Louis Boudin Biography

Eugène-Louis Boudin, French painter, was born in Honfleur, the son of a harbor pilot. In 1835, he settled in Le Havre, where he was apprenticed to a printer. In 1838, he started to work in an art supplies store and drew in his spare time. Paintings by Couture, Millet, Troyon and other artists who visited the city were exhibited in the store. They gave young Boudin valuable help and advice. Soon he gave up the store, to dedicate himself wholeheartedly to painting. In 1847-48, he traveled to Paris, visited northern France. In 1850, he exhibited two pictures in Le Havre, after which the town granted him a three-year scholarship to study in Paris (1851-1853).

Boudin first exhibited at the 1859 Salon and then at the 1863 Salon des Refusés. After his return to Le Havre he spent many summers on the farm of Saint Siméon, in the environs of Honfleur. He traveled widely in Normandy and Brittany, and visited Holland, Belgium and Venice. Wherever he went, he invariably painted harbor and beach scenes. In the 1850s, Boudin met Claude Monet and did much to help the young painter find his true artistic self. In the 1860s he frequently saw Edouard Manet and worked with him in Boulogne and Deauville.

In the 1870s, the Impressionists, in their turn, began to exert an influence on Boudin. His land- and seascapes of that period are filled with a constantly changing iridescent light; his palette grows lighter and the brushstrokes assume the aspect of soft, blurred patches of color. In 1874, Boudin took part in the 1st Impressionist Exhibition. He also frequently exhibited with the Impressionists later. His pictures of the sea made him one of the precursors of the Impressionists.

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  Beach Scene, Trouville.
  

  1863. Oil on canvas. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, USA.