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Lot Essay
Louis Welden Hawkins was a cosmopolitan figure. He was born at Essingen, near Stuttgart, the son of an Austrian aristocrat, Louise Sopransi, Baroness von Welden, and a British naval officer. Brought up in England, he joined the navy at the age of fifteen, but after a few years he left to become an artist. Around 1870 he settled in France. He lived there for the rest of his life, adopting French nationality in 1895.
The mid-1870s found Hawkins living in Paris in considerable poverty, sharing lodgings with the Irish writer George Moore (1852-1933), who was his younger cousin. At this date Moore had thoughts of an artistic career, and together they attended the Académie Julian and the Académie des Beaux-Arts, studying at the former under William Bouguereau and Jules Lefebvre, and at the latter under Gustave Boulanger.
Like so many artists at this period, Hawkins was attracted to Grez-sur-Loing, a village not far from Barbizon, on the other side of the Forest of Fontainebleau. Corot had painted there in 1863, but it was only in the 1870s that an artistic community was established, comparable to that formed at Barbizon twenty years earlier. The village seemed to have everything that appealed to Hawkins’ artistic temperament. It was intensely picturesque, boasting a medieval church, a ruined castle, and a mill. Hawkins, in this period of his life, had the opportunity to work in the presence of artists such as Jules-Bastien Lepage, John Singer Sargent and other pupils from the atelier of Carolus-Duran.
By 1887 a great inspiration for Hawkins was Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes. In particular, his use of soft pastel colours and his compression of space and perspective would come to influence Hawkins' art. The influence of Puvis is detectable in Un Coin de jardin, particularly in the work's soft colouring as well as in Hawkins' exploration of juxtaposed picture plains.
At the turn of the century Hawkins' production not only dropped but also changed course, again. Stylistically influenced by Impressionism, he spent the last decade of his life looking to build a synthesis of Symbolism and Impressionism in his art.
The mid-1870s found Hawkins living in Paris in considerable poverty, sharing lodgings with the Irish writer George Moore (1852-1933), who was his younger cousin. At this date Moore had thoughts of an artistic career, and together they attended the Académie Julian and the Académie des Beaux-Arts, studying at the former under William Bouguereau and Jules Lefebvre, and at the latter under Gustave Boulanger.
Like so many artists at this period, Hawkins was attracted to Grez-sur-Loing, a village not far from Barbizon, on the other side of the Forest of Fontainebleau. Corot had painted there in 1863, but it was only in the 1870s that an artistic community was established, comparable to that formed at Barbizon twenty years earlier. The village seemed to have everything that appealed to Hawkins’ artistic temperament. It was intensely picturesque, boasting a medieval church, a ruined castle, and a mill. Hawkins, in this period of his life, had the opportunity to work in the presence of artists such as Jules-Bastien Lepage, John Singer Sargent and other pupils from the atelier of Carolus-Duran.
By 1887 a great inspiration for Hawkins was Pierre-Cécile Puvis de Chavannes. In particular, his use of soft pastel colours and his compression of space and perspective would come to influence Hawkins' art. The influence of Puvis is detectable in Un Coin de jardin, particularly in the work's soft colouring as well as in Hawkins' exploration of juxtaposed picture plains.
At the turn of the century Hawkins' production not only dropped but also changed course, again. Stylistically influenced by Impressionism, he spent the last decade of his life looking to build a synthesis of Symbolism and Impressionism in his art.