Jules Joseph Lefebvre (French: [ʒyl ʒozɛf ləfɛvʁ]; 14 March 1836 – 24 February 1911) was a French painter, educator and theorist.

Jules Joseph Lefebvre
A photo of Lefebvre taken no later than 1903
A photo of Lefebvre taken no later than 1903
Born(1836-03-14)14 March 1836[1]
Died24 February 1911(1911-02-24) (aged 74)[1][2]
Paris, France
Other namesJules Lefebvre[2]
OccupationPainter
Signature
Jules Lefebvre in his studio

Early life

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Lefebvre was born in Tournan-en-Brie, Seine-et-Marne, on 14 March 1836.[1] He entered the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts in 1852 and was a pupil of Léon Cogniet.

Career

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He won the prestigious Prix de Rome with his The Death of Priam in 1861. Between 1855 and 1898, he exhibited 72 portraits in the Paris Salon. Many of his paintings are single figures of beautiful women. Among the portraits of his considered the best were those of M. L. Reynaud and the Prince Imperial (1874).[3] In 1891, he became a member of the French Académie des Beaux-Arts.

He was professor at the Académie Julian in Paris.[4] Lefebvre is chiefly important as an excellent and sympathetic teacher who numbered many Americans among his 1500 or more pupils. Among his famous students were Fernand Khnopff, Kenyon Cox,[3] Félix Vallotton, Ernst Friedrich von Liphart,[5] Georges Rochegrosse,[6] the Scottish-born landscape painter William Hart, Walter Lofthouse Dean, and Edmund C. Tarbell, who became an American Impressionist painter.[7] Another pupil was the miniaturist Alice Beckington[8] as was Laura Leroux-Revault, the daughter of his friend Louis Hector Leroux.[9] Jules Benoit-Lévy entered his workshop at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts.[10]

 
Grave of Jules Lefebvre, Montmartre Cemetery, Paris.
 
The Sorrow of Mary Magdalene

Lefebvre died in Paris on 24 February 1911 and was buried in the Montmartre Cemetery with a bas-relief depiction of his painting La Vérité on his grave.[1][2]

Significant milestones

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Selected works

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Undated works

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b c d "Art Renewal Center Museum™ Artist Information for Jules Joseph Lefebvre". Art Renewal Center.
  2. ^ a b c "A One-Picture Painter". Evening News. No. 13, 776. New South Wales, Australia. 3 August 1911. p. 6. Retrieved 6 March 2017 – via National Library of Australia.
  3. ^ a b Oxford Art Online, "Lefebvre, Jules"
  4. ^ a b Collier, Peter; Lethbridge, Robert (1994). Artistic Relations: Literature and the Visual Arts in Nineteenth-century France. London: Yale University Press. p. 50. ISBN 9780300060096.
  5. ^ Baron Ernst Friedrich von Liphart, Late 19th Century – 19th Century – Russian Artists – Biographies – RusArtNet.com
  6. ^ Waller, S. (ed.), Foreign Artists and Communities in Modern Paris, 1870–1914: Strangers in Paradise, Routledge, 2017, p. 119
  7. ^ Kathleen Luhrs, American Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1980: "... on to Paris and studied for a year at the Académie Julian under Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre."
  8. ^ Carrie Rebora Barratt; Lori Zabar (1 January 2010). American Portrait Miniatures in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Metropolitan Museum of Art. pp. 244–. ISBN 978-1-58839-357-9.
  9. ^ "ULAN Full Record Display (Getty Research)". www.getty.edu. Retrieved 2024-04-10.
  10. ^ "Benoit-Lévy, Jules (1866–1925), Painter, draughtsman, illustrator" Archived 2019-10-15 at the Wayback Machine, Benezit Dictionary of Artists
  11. ^ Kovacs, Anna Zsófia (2015–2016). "L'Ondine de Jules Lefebvre : un nu académique français dans les collections du musée des Beaux-Arts". Bulletin du musée hongrois des Beaux-Arts. 120–121: 147–164.
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