Louise Héger

Elisa Marie Louise Hortence Heger (also spelled Élisa (or Lisa) Marie Louise Hortense Héger, 14 July 1839 – 21 July 1933) was a painter, primarily of landscapes. She was one of the leading figures of the Belgian Impressionist movement. Alongside her artistic career, she taught art at the Heger family's boarding school.

Biography Family Elisa Marie Louise Hortence Heger was born on 14 July 1839 in Brussels to Constantin Heger and his wife Zoe née Parent. She grew up in a family that supported progressive values and had economic resources. Her father was a professor at the Athénée de Bruxelles, and her mother ran a boarding school for girls in Brussels, where Emily and Charlotte Brontë were educated, or Georgette. Louise also attended the school, with singing and drawing being her favourite subjects. The family circle in which Louise moved was also close to Belgian artistic circles. Her brother, Paul Heger, married Léontine van Mons, who was the sister of the patron Emile van Mons and the niece of the poet and art critic Émile Verhaeren. and so Louise Heger pursued alternative paths that allowed her to acquire painting technique and aesthetic sensitivity, as well as to expand her social capital.

She attended her family's institute, the Pensionnat Heger, and benefited from the teachings of the artist Paul Lauters. He taught her the technical fundamentals of drawing, engraving, and oil painting. He also introduced her to the art of landscape painting. While initially her landscape studies were carried out in the studio and from prints, he soon introduced her to painting . from the 1870s onwards, Heger frequented the artists' colonies established in Genk and Tervuren. There she rubbed shoulders with Alphonse Asselbergs, Joseph Coosemans, and Théodore T'Scharner.

Dissatisfied with local landscapes and financially secure, she sought inspiration beyond the Belgian borders, and visited Italy, Switzerland, and Norway. When she was unable to practise outdoors, Heger went to the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium where she practised copying the works on display. she freed herself from the domestic sphere to paint from nature and she chose to remain single in order to practise her art regularly. She repeated the experience at the Paris Salon in 1884 under the guidance of her teacher and painter Alfred Stevens. she frequented the private cultural circuits where the Brussels intelligentsia flocked to convert their economic capital into cultural capital. The work was lost during the Second World War and no image of the painting has survived. her artistic practice remained heavily influenced by the vagaries of the weather on the one hand and her own availability on the other. She therefore continued to practise with charcoal or ink drawing throughout her career. She primarily produced nature studies, which served as visual and memorial supports for her future works,

The aesthetic trajectory of her works also lies outside the visual norms expected of female artists. They are now in the British Library collection.

Honours Knight of the Order of Leopold (19 March 1903). The village of Coxyde, where Heger owned a villa, named a square in her honour – "Louise Hegerplein".

Works (non-exhaustive list)

Many of Louise Heger's paintings are private owned, and relatively few are on public view in museums.

(By the Lake), undated, oil on canvas, 91 x 151 cm, signed lower right, undated (Walk in the Sonian Forest), undated, oil on canvas, 65 x 49.5 cm, unsigned, undated. (Tervueren, Friends of the School of Tervuren) (View of the Dunes), 78, oil on canvas, 40 x 64.5 cm, signed and dated lower right. (Knokke-Heist, Sincfala Museum of the Zwinstreek) (View from the Top of the Belliard Staircase), undated, oil on canvas, 16.5 x 23 cm, unsigned, undated. (Private collection) (View of the Roussel Forge), undated, ink on paper, 16.3 x 41.6 cm, unsigned, undated. In: PICARD (Edmond), La Forge Roussel, Brussels, 1880, pp. 18-19. (Brussels, KBR) (Moon Effect), undated, oil on panel, 24 x 38.5 cm, unsigned, undated. (Brussels, Ixelles Museum) (Village of Coxyde), undated, oil on canvas, 44 x 30 cm, unsigned, undated. (Tournai, Tournai Museum of Fine Arts) (Orchard at Tervueren), undated, oil on canvas, 34 x 53.5 cm. (Location unknown) (Landscape with Tree near the Farm), 1888, oil on panel, 24 x 33 cm. (Location unknown) (In Dilbeek), undated, lithograph, 19.4 x 14.5 cm. (Brussels, KBR) , undated, engraving, 18 x 15 cm. (Brussels, KBR) (Siena), undated, watercolour on paper, 14.5 x 24 cm. (Free University of Brussels - Archives, Heritage, Precious Reserve Department) (Untitled (Mountain Village)), 1892, watercolour on paper. (Free University of Brussels - Archives, Heritage, Precious Reserve Department) , oil on canvas (Free University of Brussels - Archives, Heritage, and Precious Reserve Department) (Landscape with Farm), oil on panel, 1891 (Free University of Brussels - Archives, Heritage, and Precious Reserve Department)