Eugène Forel (1858-1938) Portrait Of Hermann Hildebrand (1846-1926) In His Studio In Bordeaux

Eugène FOREL
(Talence 1858 - Bordeaux 1938)
Portrait of Hermann Hildebrand (1846-1926) in his studio in Bordeaux
Charcoal, red chalk and chalk on paper
H. 30.5 cm ; W. 21.2 cm
Signed lower right
Titled and dated on the back "August 92"

Provenance : Private collection, Bordeaux

A renowned landscape artist, Eugène Forel was also an art critic during his career as a painter under the name of Pierre Morisse. Driven by his passion, he was at the origin of the founding of several artistic societies in Bordeaux. That of the Girondins artists with Jean Drouyn and especially the Atelier, a community of painters organizing numerous exhibitions in the city.

His creations are mainly from neighboring regions. The Landes, the Lot, the Basque Country and even Spain punctuate his career as a painter in a very realistic way. He was a leader of the Bordeaux school of landscape at the turn of the century, along with painters such as Auguin and Cabié.

Our backlit portrait, painted in August 1892 in Bordeaux, is that of the Alsatian painter Hermann-Berthold Hildebrand, who settled in the capital of the southwest. He spent his life and his artistic career there, marrying a Spanish woman born in Bordeaux in 1874, with whom he had at least two sons. Hermann Emmanuel, a lithographer who died before the end of the century, and Georges, whose works in the Arcachon Basin, among others, met regularly.
The Hildebrands lived at that time at 25 Cour d'Albret (where their son Emmanuel died in 1896), that is to say, just opposite the Palais de Rohan, the City Hall on the park side, whose side wings now house the Bordeaux Museum of Fine Arts. The view through the workshop window shows us the upper part of the Rohan Palace, topped by various elements of Saint-André Cathedral and the Pey-Berland Tower. This view is extremely rare, and a magnificent artistic witness created by a Bordeaux painter, depicting one of his colleagues in front of a place that is a symbol of the city.