Henry cross biography

Chance meetings in the early s would prove significant for Cross's artistic development. While on a trip to the Alpes-Maritimes in , the artist met Paul Signac , who would be a lifelong friend and artistic interlocutor. He also met Claude Monet that year, whose influence can be seen in the shift in Cross's brighter use of color and decision to paint landscape he had previously primarily concentrated on portaits and still-lifes.

Through this group, he met other avant-garde artists such as the pioneer of Neo-Impressionism Georges Seurat. Art historians such as Richard Thomson believe that Cross's paintings in general can be read as representing an anarchist vision of a world in which small groups of people live in harmony with one another and their natural environment.

In , Cross produced his first paintings using the Neo-Impressionist technique that he is best known for today. His first painting using Pointillism was the portrait Madame Hector France , which portrays his then lover Irma Clare, who he would eventually marry in Probably due to health issues such as rheumatism that had already begun to take a toll on the artist, it was also around this time Cross moved to Saint-Clair, a small hamlet in the south of France.

After receiving a letter from Cross detailing the beauty of the landscape, Signac soon followed him to the Midi, settling in nearby Saint-Tropez in The two artists also shared ideas and in about began to develop a technique that used broader brushstrokes to create what was essentially a looser version of Pointillism, thus allowing for more individual expression.

This technique, which would become characteristic of so-called second generation Neo-Impressionism, also placed more of an emphasis on color as an entity in its own right, not conditioned by appearances in nature. As he grew older, Cross began to experiment using watercolors painted in front of nature, offering the artist the speed and spontaneity his works in oils did not most of which were painted in his studio.

In a letter to his friend Charles Angrand, a fellow Neo-Impressionist, he wrote: "Over the past few days, I rest from my canvases by trying watercolor and sketching with this medium. It is fun. The absolute necessity of being fast, bold and even insolent, brings into work a kind of benevolent fever after months of languor spent on paintings whose first idea was unconsidered.

Cross's first solo exhibition took place in at Galerie Druet in Paris, in which thirty paintings and thirty watercolors were displayed. The show received significant critical acclaim, beginning a fruitful period of the artist's career; the last five years of Cross's life were unusually productive, both in artistic output and in exhibitions that featured the artist.

Unfortunately, Cross's health deteriorated quickly in and after being treated for cancer in Paris he returned to Saint-Clair, where he died shortly before turning Although he was a central figure in late-nineteenth century French artistic circles, Henri-Edmond Cross's influences on younger painters in the following century have often been undervalued.

This is in part due to the comparatively small size of his oeuvre because of the poor health that he suffered from a young age; the artist often had trouble with his vision and sometimes could not paint for long stretches of time due to arthritis. Today, many of Cross's paintings have been lost, adding an extra hurdle to art historians wanting to produce new scholarship on him, while the amount of his work in private collections has done little to promote him to new audiences.

In fact, due to his abstract and expressive use of pure color, Cross had a significant impact on the group of artists who would become known as the Fauves. Content compiled and written by Ximena Kilroe. Edited and published by The Art Story Contributors. The Art Story. Ways to support us. Movements and Styles: Neo-Impressionism. Important Art.

Self-Portrait Women Tying the Vine Madame Hector France Evening Air c. Colour and light vibrated on the canvas in small round, regularly spaced touches, covering the entire surface. His mastery of divisionist technique and optical mixture was now consummate, as can be seen from his poetic masterpiece of , The Golden Isles. The artist captured that moment when matter seems to melt in the sun.

The canvas acquires a dimension close to abstraction, creating a fusion between the sand, the water and the sky, transfiguring nature into a veritable symphony. Cross, Signac and Van Rysselberghe followed parallel paths. By , their touch was beginning to break free of the dot. The works were still divisionist, but without the limiting rigour of the early days.

Cross continued his exploration of light and its effects on colour. Moves Away From Pointillism. The following year he exhibited The Evening Air , one of his great masterpieces it inspired Henri Matisse when he painted Luxe, Calme et Volupte in Also in , Cross had his first solo exhibition, again at the Boutique Neo , bringing together pictures painted since In he took part in L'Art Nouveau , an exhibition organised by the gallerist Samuel Bing, then worked with Jean Grave, the publisher of the anarchist journal Les Temps Nouveaux , for which he produced a series of lithographs.

But while, like the other Neo-Impressionists, Cross was close to the anarchist movement, he was above all a Utopian, an idealist. Unlike Luce, he was not politically engaged, but simply interested in sharing new artistic ideas. Between and Cross's style continued to evolve. He was increasingly interested in chromatic harmony. Although continuing to use division and playing on complementary effects, his approach now seemed less radical.

He had totally abandoned the pointillist dot.

Henry cross biography

Beginning around , he gradually shifted his technique, instead using broad, blocky brushstrokes and leaving small areas of exposed bare canvas between the strokes. In Galerie Druet in Paris mounted Cross's first solo exhibition, which featured thirty paintings and thirty watercolors. Belgian Symbolist poet Emile Verhaeren , an avid supporter of Neo-Impressionism in his country, provided the preface for the exhibition catalog, writing:.

Yet this abundance never tips into excess. Everything is light and charming In the early s Cross began to experience trouble with his eyes, which grew more severe in the s. He also increasingly suffered from arthritis. At least in part due to these health issues that plagued him for years, Cross's body of work is relatively small. In Cross was treated in a Paris hospital for cancer.

In January he returned to Saint-Clair, where he died of the cancer just four days short of his 54th birthday, on 16 May In addition to the exhibitions mentioned above, Cross participated in many others. Cross works in museums and public art galleries [ 21 ]. Contents move to sidebar hide. Article Talk. Read Edit View history. Tools Tools.

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