Auguste Boulard

Auguste Marie Boulard (May 12, 1825 – October 11, 1897), also known as Auguste Boulard the Elder, was a French painter.

Early life Auguste Marie Boulard was born on May 12, 1825, in Paris, France, on Rue Saint-Antoine. In the early 1840s, he frequented Cogniet's studio in Paris.

He took up residence in Antwerp around 1843, and exposure to its coastal life reshaped his subject matter to include seascapes and fishermen. His artistic curiosity drove him to study broad horizons, shifting skies, and coastal landscapes. The Parisian landscape painter associated with the artistic circle of the Île Saint-Louis, where he lived and maintained a studio at 13 quai d’Anjou. Boulard, a neighbor of Honoré Daumier on the Île Saint-Louis, belonged to a group with Daumier, Charles-François Daubigny, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Jean-François Millet, Théodore Rousseau, Adolphe Victor Geoffroy-Dechaume, and Antoine-Louis Barye.

By 1855, his paintings increasingly portrayed rustic scenes drawn from peasant life in Val-d'Oise. He visited Antwerp in 1858, which allowed him to meet Eugène Delacroix and reestablish contact with Honoré Daumier. A still life of apples that he painted entered Lucas's collection in 1869 for 100 francs. Boulard's son, who shared his first name, Auguste, was trained by the elder Boulard. He also counted Louis Marie Lemaire among his pupils. By 1880, Emilio Sánchez Perrier and Antonio de La Gandara were regular visitors at his studio on the Île Saint-Louis.

He achieved wider recognition with the inaugural Salon du Champ-de-Mars in 1890 and continued to exhibit there each year. Boulard's The Fisherman's Child, an oil painting, was purchased by the State in 1887 for the Luxembourg Museum.

Galerie Georges Petit in Paris presented a selection of his works during an 1896 exhibition. Auguste Boulard Sr. died on October 11, 1897, in L'Isle-Adam, Val-d'Oise, Île-de-France, France.

Boulard's work was showcased at the Exposition Universelle in 1900.

In 1994, the Louis Senlecq Museum of Art and History in L'Isle-Adam held an exhibition titled "Auguste Boulard, the last of the Romantics".

Works L'Enfant du pêcheur (The Fisherman's Child) L'Enfant aux cerises (The Cherry Child) Portrait du père de l'artiste (Portrait of the artist's father)

Gallery