Alphonse legros biography

A Frenchman by birth, Alphonse Legros is primarily remembered today not merely as a talented artist but for his major contributions to art education in Britain, especially the time he spent at the Slade where he influenced a generation of artists.

In 1851 Legros left for Paris to take another situation; but passingthrough Lyon he worked for six months as journeyman wall-painter under the decorator Beuchot, who was painting the chapel of CardinalBonald in the cathedral.

In Paris he studied with Cambon, scene-painter and decorator of theatres, an experiencewhichdeveloped a breadth of touch such as Stallfield and Cox picked up in similar circumstances.

Legros was president of the committee of the Alfred Stevens Memorial. In 1859 Legros exhibited L’ Angelus at the Salon, the first of his peaceful sombre church interiors for which he would become well known. In 1875 he replaced Poynter as the Professor of Fine Art at the Slade School of University College London. Initially through Whistler he was introduced to a number of fellow artists and to patrons and was met with great kindness by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, G.

F. Watts, and Frederic Leighton. Although Legros never mastered the English language, he did become a naturalized British citizen in 1881.

Legros sent two portraits to the Paris Salon of 1857: one was rejected, and formed part of the exhibition of protest organized by Francois Bonvin in his studio; the other, which was accepted, was a profile portrait of his father.

In the beginning Legros lived primarily by his etching and teaching.

In 1864 Legros exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy and continued to exhibit there until 1882. He began teaching etching at the South Kensington School of Art and in 1876 became a Slade Professor at University College, London, succeeding Edward Poynter. Legros worked as a mural painter doing ornamental work in fresco in the chapel.

Before him are Sanjō Sanetomi, Walter Hauser, Georg Ossian Sars, Michele Rua, Henry Becque, and Joachim IV of Constantinople. In 1857 he submitted two portraits to the Paris Salon, one of which was rejected but was later included in the protest exhibition organized by the realist painter François Bonvin. Because of a lack of recognition in France, combined with severe financial difficulties, Legros moved to England that same year at the suggestion of Whistler.

Once he arrived in Paris Legros initially studied with Charles-Antoine Cambon, a theatre decorator, which improved the decorative quality of his work.