(1844 – 1925) Léon-Augustin Lhermitte (also known as Léon Augustin L'hermitte) was born on July 31, 1844 in Mont-Saint-Père in the Aisne region of north-eastern France. His earliest experience with the arts was copying works out of popular illustrated magazines and studying the work of earlier French painters, such as the Realists. His father, a schoolteacher, encouraged his work by allowing him to sketch. The young Lhermitte’s talent quickly became apparent to others. His father introduced his drawings to Count Walewski, then minister at the École des Beaux-Arts. Walewski was so impressed by the young mans’ abilities that he offered him a scholarship of 600 francs permitting him to enroll in the École Impériale de Dessin in the early 1860s, where he became a student of Horace Lecoq de Boisboudran. Here he was introduced to a type of study of drawing that was based on memorization, a technique also used by James McNeill Whistler. In this way he could view a scene, especially a landscape scene, and more fully execute the painting back in his studio. In 1864 his charcoal drawing the Banks of the Marne near Alfort was exhibited at the Salon. He continued to exhibit his drawings at the Salon until 1889. In 1866 his first oil painting, Violets in a Glass, Shells, Screen, was exhibited at the Salon, and he produced his first etching, for his friend Frederic Henriet’s book Payagiste aux champs. In 1869 he made his first visit to London, where he met Legros. On his second visit in 1871 Legros recommended him as an illustrator for Works of Art in the Collections of England Drawn by E. Lie and introduced him to the dealer Durand-Ruel, who agreed to sell several of his drawings. In 1873 Durand-Ruel sent some of Lhermitte’s works to the Dudley Gallery for the first of the annual Black and White exhibitions and Lhermitte subsequently became a regular participant. Lhermitte won a third-class medal in the Salon of 1874 for his painting The Harvest that was bought by the state. In 1879 Degas noted in a sketchbook his intention to invite Lhermitte to exhibit with the Impressionists, but Lhermitte never participated in any of their shows. The Tavern, exhibited in the Salon of 1881, initiated the monumental series of paintings on the life of the agricultural worker that came closest to justifying van Gogh’s admiring appellation “Millet the Second”. The next in the series, Harvesters’ Payday was bought for the state and became the artist’s best-known work. The Harvest, third in the series, was included with ten charcoal drawings in the Exposition Nationale in 1883. Lhermitte received the Legion d'honneur in 1884 when he exhibited the fourth monumental composition the Grape Harvest (New York, Met.). Lhermitte was commissioned in 1886 to do two large portrait groups to decorate the Sorbonne. The first, Claude Bernard in his Laboratory at the Colle de France, was shown in the Salon of 1889. In 1888 Andre Theuriet asked him to illustrate La Vie Rustique, a major commission for which Lhermitte used the many drawings of peasant life he had already executed. Lhermitte was a founding member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890. In 1894 he was made an officer of the Legion d’honneur. In 1900, Lhermitte took part in both the Exposition Universelle, to which he was a member of the jury, and the Exposition des Pastellistes. During the latter part of his career, mainly after 1900, he showed his dependence on the precepts of Impressionism and began devote more of his compositional space to the landscape and effects of the atmosphere. Whereas earlier in his career, figures would occupy the majority of the composition, thus focusing attention on them and their activity, later in his career he devoted less space to these figures. Equally important is that these figures began to lose their individual identity. Instead of depicting them with unique features, they instead became subsidiary elements to the overall impression of the landscape. At the same time, however, he did began more works on the theme of maternity which concentrated attention on the figures and the family values associated with them. Lhermitte was elected to fill Jacques Henner’s chair in painting at the Institut in 1905. He continued to exhibit in the first decades of the 20th century, when he was generally seen as a relic of a bygone era, although his style later had an influence on Socialist Realism. Increasingly he worked in pastel, his draughtsman’s skill ever in evidence, producing some sensitive portraits and peasant scenes reminiscent of the earlier and more powerful depictions that van Gogh had cited as “an ideal”. As he grew older, Lhermitte stayed closer to his home and executed several landscape pastels based on the banks of the Marne, which was near his studio, and other landscapes near his home. He was decorated with several honors from across Europe, such as the Chevalier of the Order of St. Michael in Germany, and his works were regularly acquired by the state after their showing. His life and career ended on July 28, 1925 in Paris, after which point his career and work fell into the oblivion until the 1990s when it was reappraised by an exposition at the Musée d’Orsay.
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