Émile Friant is a master of realism whose paintings depict the simple joys, tragedies and everyday life of people in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He was beloved by both the public and collectors, received state commissions and taught at the School of Fine Arts, but he entered history primarily as an artist who masterfully conveyed the full range of human emotions. In our article, the artist's journey from the son of a mechanic to a recognized master.
«Mother's tenderness» (1906)
Emile Friant French realist painter, was born in Diez, 40 kilometers northeast of Nancy in 1863. His family were ordinary working people, his father was a locksmith and his mother a dressmaker. The neighbor of the family, the widow of the pharmacist, Madame Parisot, had no children and loved Emile as a native son, often tutored him. She often hired Emile's mother to make dresses.
«Lovers / Idyll on the Bridge» (1888)
After the defeat of the French Empire in the Franco-Prussian War, the town of Diez came under the control of the German Empire. Madame Parisot in 1871 decides to flee with seven-year-old Emile to Nancy, and soon after they moved there and his biological parents.
La Petite Barque (1895).
Madame Parizeau was very insistent that Emile followed in the footsteps of her late husband and became an apothecary. She paid for his education and sent the boy to study at the lyceum. Learning did not give him pleasure and gave him a hard time. But the boy found an undeniable talent for painting. Emile's father suggested that he enter the city art school in Nancy, and the basic education to receive at home, privately. The director of the art school Louis-Théodore Devilli was a follower of realism in painting, and the young man painted still lifes and landscapes surrounding Nancy in the same technique.
L'Expiation ou La Peine capitale (1908)
Emile Friant first exhibited his painting “Little Friant” at the age of fifteen and immediately became a local celebrity. A year later, he won a grant and the city council sent him to Paris, to the studio of Alexandre Cabanel, who taught the young artist to paint historical subjects in an academic style. In Paris he met three artists, Aimé Moreau, Victor Prouvé and Jules Bastien-Lepage. But soon Emile became disillusioned with classical and salon painting and decides to return to Nancy. Where he continued to work in the technique of realism. He also created his works in charcoal, oil, during the painting used photographs.
Aimé Moreau in 1882 invites Friant to become a participant in the exhibition at the Paris Salon, the latter accepts the invitation, deciding to exhibit two of his works: “The Prodigal Son” and “The Interior of the Studio of Emile Friant”.
Le Sculpteur Bussière dans son atelier (1884).
Peinture mystique, 1901
He received many more offers to exhibit and won prizes and medals. He continued to paint in the technique of realism. The artist is characterized by portraits and scenes of everyday life, he quite often resorted to photography to most accurately convey reality.
Demand for portraits of his authorship grew, part of the year he worked in a shooting studio in Paris, and the rest of the time in Nancy. It was then that Frian met French actors, brothers Ernest and Benoit Coquelin. For the Coquelin family, he wrote a large number of portraits. And Benoit, being a passionate admirer of painting, acquired several more of his works.
Les Canotiers de la Meurthe (1888)
“Politics Talk.” (1889)
In 1892, through the intermediary Roland Knödler, the artist sold two of his works presented at the Paris Salon of that year, “Good Dog” and “Bad Dog”, to the American financier George Baker. And the following year, he exhibited at the World's Fair in Chicago, timed to coincide with the 400th anniversary of the discovery of America, paintings “Sharp Shadows” and “Portrait of Antonin Proust”, depicting a close friend of Édouard Manet.
Ombres portées (1891)
In 1894, the Paris Salon and the exhibition on the Champ de Mars presented works commissioned by the French government to decorate the capital's City Hall and the Sorbonne. Among them were two large-scale works by Friant, united by the theme of summer serenity: a sunny meadow, children playing, women weaving wreaths, and elderly people resting in the coolness of the trees. In the center of the composition is a mother embracing a sleeping infant.
La Douleur (1898).
Autoportrait en gris clair (1888).
In the same year, 1894 at the exhibition on the Champ de Mars, Frian showed the painting “Scarce Food”, in which the inspiration was the Ledergerber family from Nancy. The foreground depicts a girl named Eugenie, with whom the artist developed a personal relationship. This canvas was included in the Carnegie's annual art exhibition in Pittsburgh, which began in November 1896. The work impressed Henry Clay Frick a major industrialist and philanthropist closely associated with Pittsburgh's art galleries and painting collecting.
“Scarce food.” (1894)
Later Frian creates two more emotional paintings - “Consolation” and “Childish Sadness”. The latter was also acquired by Frick. The painting had a deep personal meaning for him, recalling the tragic loss of his six-year-old daughter Martha and his older sister Maria.
Chagrin d’enfant (1897-1898)
At the Salon of 1901 Frian presented a work entitled “Pleasant Thoughts”, and in 1905 - “First Lessons”, depicting a scene where a mother teaches her daughter to read.
From this period, the artist creates less and less significant works of art, focusing on portraits of influential personalities: politicians, public figures and representatives of the aristocracy.
The Familiar Birds, 1921
Devant la psyché
In 1923, Frian was entrusted with a teaching position at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and later became a member of the prestigious Institut de France.
The artist died in 1932 in Paris. He is buried in Nancy, where now, as in Pittsburgh, his major works are kept in the collections of local museums of fine arts.
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