1. Henri Beau is noted for Chemin en ete, La dispersion des Acadiens, L'arrivee de Champlain a Quebec, and Les Noces de Cana.
37 Facts About Henri Beau
1. 2.
Henri Beau was only recognized as a notable artist decades later, with major retrospectives of his paintings celebrating his career by the Galerie Bernard Desroches in Montreal in 1974, and at the Musee du Quebec in Quebec City in 1987.
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Henri Beau studied under French Masters Joseph Chabert, Leon Bonnat, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Jean-Leon Gerome, and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.
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Henri Beau had initial success as an Impressionist painter, amongst other Canadian Impressionists in Paris, and was awarded the Ordre des Palmes Academiques by the French government.
5.
Henri Beau obtained art commissions from the Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal and the Government of Quebec.
6.
Henri Beau served as associate archivist for the Parisian-branch of the Public Archives of Canada from 1921 to 1938.
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Henri Beau was born Louis-Henri Beau to a working class French-Canadian family in Montreal, in 1863.
8.
Henri Beau was the third child of restaurateur Charles-Arsene Beau and Marguerite-Clementine Hupe.
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Henri Beau was baptized at Notre-Dame Basilica in Montreal on 28June 1863, a day after his birth.
10.
Henri Beau's father, Charles-Arsene Beau, was born in Belleville, east of Paris, France, in 1823, arrived in New York City in 1848, and settled in Montreal in 1858, where he lived until his death in 1894.
11.
Henri Beau was a cook and a restaurant manager at restaurant Beau frequented regularly by painter Edmond Dyonnet according to his memoires.
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Henri Beau's father met and married his mother, Marguerite-Clementine Hupe, a 21-year-old Montreal woman sometime before 1851.
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Henri Beau's brother Paul Beau was a fine arts ironworker.
14.
Later Henri Beau produced a decanteur a trepied as an homage to his brother.
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Henri Beau then travelled to Paris to continue his education at studios there.
16.
Henri Beau began presenting his work at exhibitions in Paris in the 1890s.
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Henri Beau studied under William-Adolphe Bouguereau at l'Academie Julian and Jean-Leon Gerome at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris known today as l'Ecole nationale superieure des Beaux-Arts.
18.
Unlike many of his Canadian peers who pursued an art education in Paris, Henri Beau's family was not wealthy so he used his talents as a painter to earn a living.
19.
Henri Beau is known to have copied eleven paintings from the Louvre in 1896 and 1900.
20.
In 1893, Henri Beau received a commission from Alfred-Leon Senneterre to paint Les Noces de Cana, depicting the marriage at Cana, delivered to the Notre-Dame du Sacre-Coeur Chapel in the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal in 1894.
21.
Henri Beau was a known patron of Parisian-trained Impressionist painters, and his painting collection contained works by nearly all of the early Impressionist painters of his time.
22.
In July 1904, Henri Beau returned to Montreal and worked as an art professor at l'ecole Sarsfield from September 1905 to April 1906.
23.
Henri Beau's career in the civil service started in 1915 when he was a temporary copyist for the Paris branch of the Public Archives of Canada.
24.
Henri Beau was promoted to associate archivist in 1921, a position he held until his retirement in 1938.
25.
Henri Beau was based mostly in France, though he did work for a number of Canadian customers.
26.
Multiple reasons can perhaps explain this decision such as the appointment of Arthur George Doughty as the Dominion Archivist, and Keeper of the Records, whom Henri Beau admired for his encouragement and his laissez-faire attitude.
27.
Henri Beau painted Les noces de Cana, which is in Notre-Dame Basilica.
28.
Henri Beau was a member of various art societies in France, including the Societe des Uns and the Parisian Societe de Salon d'Hiver.
29.
Little is known about her aside from an entry in Ludger Larose's diary that states that Henri Beau's wife is searching for him.
30.
Henri Beau left her around that time for Marie Fertinel an opera singer with whom he had an affair and later married in 1946.
31.
Henri Beau is buried at the cimetiere de Rueil-Malmaison.
32.
Henri Beau drew inspiration for his paintings from his travels around Europe.
33.
Henri Beau drew inspiration from Camille Corot, Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro, which is reflected in his earlier paintings named Landscapes.
34.
In 1956, Henri Beau's wife donated ten of his paintings to the Musee du Quebec.
35.
The vast majority of Henri Beau's known works reside at Library and Archives Canada.
36.
Henri Beau was known to paint Impressionist landscapes for his personal collection.
37.
Henri Beau exhibited at the Salon des Independants in Paris and the Galerie Figaro according to documents held by the Galerie Bernard Desroches.