Beautiful Portrait Of Herman Richir 1866 - 1942 Signed Lower Right Circa 1900

Watercolor signed lower right Herman Jean Joseph Richir (1866-1942). Elegant portrait circa 1900. Dimensions: 57.5x44cm (at sight). biography: Herman Richir, born Herman Jean Joseph Richir on December 4, 1866 in Ixelles and died on March 15, 1942, is a Belgian academic painter of allegorical and mythological scenes, nudes and portraits. Herman Richir also produces posters under the pseudonym HamnerA 1 (anagram of his first name), including two advertising chromolithographs for DelhaizeA 2 in the Art Nouveau style. Herman Richir entered the Academy of Fine Arts of Saint-Josse-ten-Noode and received the support there, in particular from Charles Hermans who provided him with valuable advice. From 1884 to 1889, he continued his training at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels under the direction of Jean-François Portaels. Already a laureate of the academy in 1885, Richir ranked second in the Prix de Rome the following year behind Constant Montald. In 1889, at the Ghent Triennial Salon, he won a gold medal for his group The Ward Meulenbergh family, which immediately placed him among the masters of portraiture. His presence was noticed at the Salons of Paris in 1889 and 1892, as well as at the International Exhibition of Brussels of 1897. First appointed professor of the drawing course from nature at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels in 1900, Herman Richir then became professor of painting there from 1905 to 1927. Academic education had a great influence on many of his students, including two eminent members of the Nervia group, Louis Buisseret and Léon Navez. While continuing to teach, he sporadically held the post of director within the same institution from 1906 to 1927 (1906-1907, 1910-1911, 1915-1919 [replacing Victor Horta], 1925-1927). He definitively left his post of director in 1927, and was replaced by Victor Horta. Painter of allegorical and mythological scenes, decorative panels but also lithographer under the pseudonym "Hamner", Herman Richir is first and foremost a portrait painter appreciated by the high society of the time and to whom we owe in particular several portraits of the Belgian royal family. His paintings show a rigorously precise line and a great attention to detail. He excelled in the representation of elegant women dressed in rare fabrics, but his correct conception of the artistic ideal led him to represent the woman also in the beauty of her complexion alone. This is why alongside the work of the portrait painter, it is appropriate to place that of the painter of nudes. For the artist, a portrait must be the faithful but living reproduction of his model. Beauty, in his eyes, has a meaning, a content and a realism that it elevates to the dignity of a dogma. Always fascinated by a traditionalist classicism, Herman Richir glorifies women, whose well-balanced forms he paints, with natural colors. He is seduced by femininity and dedicates his admiration to it to the point of sublimating it in allegorical scenes. He also occasionally painted monumental works intended to decorate the lounges and entrance halls of bourgeois houses. In particular, he produced the set of twelve decorative panels for the Château de Fontaine de Laveleye in Boitsfort. Suffering from stomach cancer which was slowly eating away at him, Richir nevertheless continued his career as a painter. He died on March 15, 1942, leaving behind him a considerable work (in particular more than 400 portraits) distributed in many museums, including those of Brussels, Antwerp, Namur, Genk, Lille, Barcelona, Liverpool, Budapest, Sydney, Seattle ... He was a full member of the Royal Society of Fine Arts and was also a member of the National Society of Fine Arts in Paris. “Richir's work is the opposite of a revolutionary work: it exudes the assurance and satisfaction of a job well done; it exalts the quiet beauty of nature or the human body and it pays homage to the qualities of professional efficiency or elegance of its models. - Wim ToeboschB 2 Herman Richir was appointed Commander of the Order of Leopold II and Officer of the Order of Leopold.