Eugene Villon Landscape In Brittany

Eugène Villon born in The Hague on December 26, 1879 and died in Caluire on November 7, 1951 was a French painter and engraver Born in The Hague of a French father and a Dutch mother, Eugène Villon first lived in Holland where he studied painting and drawing. With his mother, they then moved to Nice where he studied with Auguste Clément Herst at the School of Fine Arts. Steeped in the Flemish school and a gifted student, he obtained his first commission in 1895 with the wall decoration of the Grand Théâtre de Genève. He moved to Lyon around 1900, did photographic retouching and then stood out at Arnaud's, when he created the series of menus for the Bénédictine. He also dabbles in watercolour. He perfected an execution process that allowed him to give his watercolor works the power of oil. Eugène Villon makes watercolor his material; he knows how to master effects, rediscover transparencies. He stays in the Maghreb where he is illustrated in the evocation of the souks and mosques. With the features and the accomplice smile of the Old Arab, and the racy and shaded features of the young Nord-unveiled, Villon goes beyond mere appearances. Eugène Villon is known in Lyon but also in the many European cities where he goes to work: Amsterdam, Brussels, Bruges, Strasbourg, Venice, Nice. He also travels to North Africa as well as to many regions: Brittany, Corsica, the South, Savoy and Auvergne. In 1908, the Under-Secretary of State Étienne Dujardin-Beaumetz bought some works from him at the Salon d'Automne in Lyon. Much appreciated, he exhibited regularly at the Société lyonnaise des beaux-arts (SLBA) of which he became a member of the jury from 1913 to 1945. In 1926, he joined the administration committee of the SLBA and became vice-president in 1939 until in 1944. Like many artists from Lyon, Eugène Villon also left for Paris where he exhibited for the first time at the Salon des artistes français in 1907, of which he became an associate member. He was a member of the Society of French Orientalist Painters where he exhibited from 1910 to 1943. Eugène Villon, an officer of Public Instruction and an Academy officer, was named Chevalier of the Legion of Honor in 1937. This decoration was awarded to him by President Albert Lebrun. Critics can then write under the pen of J. Etievant: “I do not believe that an artist is so close as he is to absolute mastery and perfection[”. His meeting with Antoine Barbier was decisive because it led to the creation of the Society of Lyon Watercolourists in 1934. He died in Caluire-et-Cuire on November 7, 1951, leaving a work of paintings, watercolors, engravings and drawings.