Léon Pourtau
Léon Pourtau | |
|---|---|
 Self-portrait c. 1890 | |
| Born | 1868 Bordeaux, France |
| Died | 4 July 1898 Atlantic Ocean, near Sable Island, Canada |
| Nationality |  France |
| Movement | Post-Impressionism, pointilism, Divisionism |
Léon Pourtau (1868[1] – 4 July 1898) was a French painter and musician.
At the age of 15, an apprentice typesetter, Pourtau left Bordeaux for Paris. He worked in a small restaurant on the , where musicians gathered Orchestre Lamoureux. Thanks to them Pourtau got a job as a concert clarinetist in a Café-chantant. He toured with a circus band where he would help set up the tent and bathe the elephants. Back in Paris he entered the Conservatoire de Paris. During this period he married, had two children, and become a professor at the Conservatoire de Lyon at the age of 22 – the youngest ever.
He met Georges Seurat, himself also a musician, who taught him the impressionist technique. He took the opportunity of a concert tour in the US, which, after two years, earned him 20,000 Francs. At the annual exhibition of fine art held in Philadelphia over the winter of 1896–1897, he exhibited a painting, Quatre heures de l'après-midi (Four o'clock in the afternoon). This would be his only showing.[2] Returning to Le Havre, Pourtau boarded the SS La Bourgogne. On 4 July 1898 she was sunk in collision in dense fog with the British sailing ship Cromartyshire off Sable Island (now belonging to Canada).[3] The painter died in the accident.
His works are now in the collections of several art museums including the Museo Soumaya, Mexico City and the Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, Arizona.
Lecture sous la lampe
Sur la plage
c.f. A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte by Seurat
Paysage provençal
St. Tropez
Portrait de madame Vallad
Solei Couchant
Rue de Village
References[]
- ^ https://archives.gironde.fr/ark:/25651/vta23b4bbb8e01ae2f6/daogrp/0/190#id:117145994?gallery=true&brightness=100.00&contrast=100.00¢er=2322.000,-1725.000&zoom=7&rotation=0.000
- ^ Souren Melikian, "Unexpected masterpieces at Maastricht fair", International Herald Tribune, 12 September 2006. Article consulté en ligne le 27.04.08.
- ^ 210 US 95 George Deslions vs. La Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, http://openjurist.org/210/us/95/george-deslions-v-la-compagnie-generale-transatlantique
External links[]
Media related to Léon Pourtau at Wikimedia Commons
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- 1872 births
- 1898 deaths
- Artists from Bordeaux
- Conservatoire de Paris alumni
- 19th-century French painters
- French male painters
- French classical clarinetists
- Post-impressionist painters
- Deaths due to shipwreck at sea
- 19th-century classical musicians
- Musicians from Bordeaux
- French painter, 19th-century birth stubs