Lucien Henry
{{Short description|French painter (1850–1896)}}
{{use dmy dates|date=August 2021}}
{{Infobox artist
| image = Lucien Henry.jpg
| birth_date = {{birth date|1850|05|22}}
| birth_place = Sisteron
| death_date = {{death date and age|1896|03|10|1850|05|22}}
| death_place = Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat
}}
File:The Australian flora in applied art (1915) (14782211994).jpg (1888), stained glass window from the Sydney Town Hall]]
File:Lucien Henry - Devil's Coach-house, Fish River Caves - Google Art Project.jpg
Lucien Félix Henry (22 May 1850 - 10 March 1896), was a French painter, who was active in Sydney.{{Citation|last=McMartin|first=Arthur|title=Henry, Lucien Felix (1850–1896)|url=https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/henry-lucien-felix-3755|work=Australian Dictionary of Biography|place=Canberra|publisher=National Centre of Biography, Australian National University|access-date=2021-08-21}}
A socialist, he was part of the Paris Commune. He is often confused with Fortuné Henry, another Communard, in many historical works on the commune.
Life
Lucien Henry arrived in Paris in 1867 to take courses in fine arts and studied under Viollet-le-Duc before studying with Jean-Léon Gérôme.{{Cite web|title=Henry, Lucien {{!}} The Dictionary of Sydney|url=https://dictionaryofsydney.org/entry/henry_lucien|access-date=2021-08-21|website=dictionaryofsydney.org}} A militant socialist and a member of the First International, he contributed to the newspaper La Resistance. During the Franco-Prussian war and the siege of Paris (1870-1871) he was a member of the National Guard. On March 11, 1871, he was elected leader of the legion of the 14th arrondissement and became “Colonel Henry”. On April 3, he took part in the exit from Châtillon (Battle of Meudon), where the communards were defeated by the forces of the Third Republic. During this unfortunate offensive he was arrested, and sentenced to death in 1872, but the sentence was commuted to deportation to New Caledonia.
Granted amnesty in 1878, he moved to Australia in June 1879, the year of Sydney International Exhibition. In 1880, he married another exile, Juliette Rastoul née Lopez.{{Cite web|author=Claude Cornet|title=Regards de femmes: Juliette Lopez-Rastoul|url=https://www.calameo.com/read/0008024726015ee362629|access-date=2021-08-21|website=calameo.com|location= Nouméa |publisher=Musée de la ville de Nouméa|date= 1998}} In Sydney, Henry became known as a painter and teacher. The stained glass windows in Sydney Town Hall{{Cite web|title=Watercolour painting of stained glass window in Town Hall, Sydney, designed by Lucien Henry and made by Goodlet & Smith Ltd.|url=https://collection.maas.museum/object/39051|access-date=2021-08-21|website=collection.maas.museum|language=en}} were an important work. He became an art teacher at the Sydney Technical College, and took a uniquely Australian approach to the decorative arts, with the use of motifs inspired by local flora and fauna such as Telopea (waratah). Returning to France in 1891 in search of a publisher for a collection of his Australian watercolors, he died in 1896 in the hamlet of Le Pavé in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat where he was buried.
Work
Some of his work is held in the Art Gallery of New South Wales,{{Cite web|title=Devil's Coach-house, Fish River Caves, 1883 by Lucien Henry|url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/459.1979/|access-date=2021-08-21|website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au|language=en}}{{Cite web|title=Waratah, 1887 by Lucien Henry|url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/238.1983/|access-date=2021-08-21|website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au|language=en}} and some 204 works are held at the Powerhouse Museum,{{Cite web|title=Search - MAAS Collection: Lucien Henry|url=https://collection.maas.museum/search?q=Lucien%20Henry|access-date=2021-08-21|website=collection.maas.museum}} including works with native flora motifs.{{Cite web|title=Design by Lucien Henry (Stenocarpus study)|url=https://collection.maas.museum/object/323702|access-date=2021-08-21|website=collection.maas.museum|language=en}}
Further reading
- Pierre-Henri Zaidman, Lucien-Félix Henry, colonel de la Commune, condamné à mort et artiste australien, éditions du Baboune, 86 p..
References
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Category:19th-century French painters
Category:French emigrants to the British Empire
Category:Artists from New South Wales
Category:Colony of New South Wales people
Category:19th-century Australian painters