Alfred Agache (painter)
Encyclopedia
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
academic
Academic art
Academic art is a style of painting and sculpture produced under the influence of European academies of art. Specifically, academic art is the art and artists influenced by the standards of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts, which practiced under the movements of Neoclassicism and Romanticism,...
painter
Painting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
.
Little is known of Agache. He was born in Lille
Lille
Lille is a city in northern France . It is the principal city of the Lille Métropole, the fourth-largest metropolitan area in the country behind those of Paris, Lyon and Marseille. Lille is situated on the Deûle River, near France's border with Belgium...
, France, and exhibited his work frequently in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
until his death. He seems to have specialized in portrait
Portrait
thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...
s and large-scale allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
paintings. He was a member of the Société des Artistes Français
Société des artistes français
The Société des Artistes Français is the association of French painters and sculptors established in 1881. Its annual exhibition is called the Salon....
, and won a third-class medal in 1885 for his work. He may have been friends with American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler and French writer Auguste Angellier; the latter dedicated a book to him around 1893.
Two of his pieces, "Vanity" and "The Annunciation", were shown at the World's Columbian Exposition
World's Columbian Exposition
The World's Columbian Exposition was a World's Fair held in Chicago in 1893 to celebrate the 400th anniversary of Christopher Columbus's arrival in the New World in 1492. Chicago bested New York City; Washington, D.C.; and St...
in Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, 1893. He was awarded the Légion d'honneur
Légion d'honneur
The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...
.
He died in Lille in 1915.
"L'Épée"
One of these paintings, L'Épee (FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, "The Sword"), painted in 1896, includes the Latin phrase "PRO IUSTITIA TANTUM" ("On behalf of Justice Only") to represent that violence should be used only by Justice. It was displayed at the Paris Salon
Paris Salon
The Salon , or rarely Paris Salon , beginning in 1725 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. Between 1748–1890 it was the greatest annual or biannual art event in the Western world...
that year. It was purchased by the Canadian National Exhibition
Canadian National Exhibition
Canadian National Exhibition , also known as The Ex, is an annual event that takes place at Exhibition Place in Toronto, Ontario, Canada during the 18 days leading up to and including Labour Day Monday. With an attendance of approximately 1.3 million visitors each season, it is Canada’s largest...
(CNE) in 1916 from an exhibition of paintings that were currently on loan from France. Following the CNE's decision in 1938 to cease collecting and exhibiting European art, the painting (with other French works) was loaned to the Art Gallery of Ontario
Art Gallery of Ontario
Under the direction of its CEO Matthew Teitelbaum, the AGO embarked on a $254 million redevelopment plan by architect Frank Gehry in 2004, called Transformation AGO. The new addition would require demolition of the 1992 Post-Modernist wing by Barton Myers and Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg...
(AGO); in the mid-1960s these works were formally donated to the AGO. This painting remained in the AGO's vaults until the early 1990s; it was cleaned and restored and displayed in the AGO's Fudger Gallery.
In June 2005, "L'Épée" was included in an exhibition called "Favourites: Your Choices from Our Collection", which displayed works based on votes from the general public from the previous four months.
Partial list of works
- "Portrait de femme agée" ("Portrait of an old woman"), 1880
- "Portrait de jeune femme" ("Portrait of a young woman"), 1883
- "L'Annonciation" ("The Annunciation"), 1885
- "Vanité" ("Vanity"), 1885
- "La roue de la Fortune" ("Wheel of Fortune"), 1885
- "Enigme" ("Enigma"), 1888, oil on canvas
- "La Diseuse de bonne aventure", 1895
- "The Fortune Teller", 1895, oil on canvas
- "Jeune fille assise tenant des fleurs dans les bras" ("Girl sitting with flowers in her arms"), 1889
- "Head of a Girl with Rose Corsage", 1890, oil on canvas
- "The Old Conqueror", 1904
- "Along the Seine towards Notre Dame", 1905, oil on panel
- "Fantaisie" ("Imagination"), unknown; shown at the Salon de la Société des Beaux-Arts, 1907
- "Portraite" ("Portrait"), unknown; shown at the Salon de la Société des Beaux-Arts, 1908
- "Les Couronnes" ("The Crowns") , unknown; shown at the Salon de la Société des Beaux-Arts, 1909
- "Étude" ("Study"), unknown; shown at the Salon de la Société des Beaux-Arts, 1910
- "Les Masques" ("The Masks"), unknown; shown at the Salon de la Société des Beaux-Arts, 1911
- "Les parques"" ("The Fates"), unknown
- "Femme nue étendue, tête de femme" ("Reclining female nude, woman's head"), unknown