Charles Lucien Léandre

Charles Lucien Léandre (; 23 July 1862 – 24 May 1934) was a French caricaturist and painter. He studied painting under Émile Bin and Alexandre Cabanel.

Early life Charles Lucien Léandre was born on 23 July 1862 in Champsecret, Orne. His father was the mayor of the town in which they lived until his death in 1868. At 16, Léandre met the painter Émile Bin, who would instruct Léandre. Léandre received multiple awards for his artistic talents in his twenties.

Work and career

From 1887 Léandre figured among the exhibitors of the Salon, where he showed numerous portraits and genre pictures, but his popular fame is due to his comic drawings and caricatures. The series of the "Gotha des souverains," published in Le Rire, and Léandre's other work like that seen in L'Assiette au Beurre placed him in the front rank of contemporary caricaturists.

Besides his contributions to Le Rire, Le Figaro and other comic journals, he published a series of albums: Nocturnes, Le Musée des souverains, and Paris et la province. In 1904, he created the Société des Peintres Humoristes.

Léandre produced work in lithography, and designed many posters, such as the "Yvette Guilbert." "Les nouveaux mariés," "Joseph Prudhomme," "Les Lutteurs," and "La Femme au chien."

He died in 1934 in his Caulaincourt street studio, in Montmartre.

Honours Léandre won a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle in 1889 for a large size painting: la Mère ou « Dormio cor meum vigilat » ("Je dors mais mon coeur veille"). In 1900, at the next Exposition Universelle, he was among the five lithographic artists selected to achieve two compositions on a selected theme; he received a gold medal at this contest.

He was created a Knight of the Legion of Honour. In 1921, he got the Medal of Honour of the Société des artistes français, in the engraving section, one of the more important honorary awards an artist could obtain in Paris. In 1925, Charles Léandre was promoted an Officer of the Legion of Honour.

Gallery