1. James Tissot is best known for a variety of genre paintings of contemporary European high society produced during the peak of his career, which focused on the people and women's fashion of the Belle Epoque and Victorian England, but he would explore many medieval, biblical, and Japoniste subjects throughout his life.
James Tissot's career included work as a caricaturist for Vanity Fair under the pseudonym of Coide.
James Tissot was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1894.
Jacques James Tissot was born in the city of Nantes in France and spent his early childhood there.
James Tissot's youth spent in Nantes likely contributed to his frequent depiction of shipping vessels and boats in his later works.
James Tissot's father opposed this, preferring his son to follow a business profession, but the young Tissot gained his mother's support for his chosen vocation.
In 1856 or 1857, James Tissot travelled to Paris to pursue an education in art.
In 1859, James Tissot exhibited in the Paris Salon for the first time.
James Tissot showed five paintings of scenes from the Middle Ages, many depicting scenes from Goethe's Faust.
Emile Pereire supplied James Tissot's painting Walk in the Snow for the 1862 international exhibition in London; the next year three paintings by James Tissot were displayed at the gallery of art dealer Ernest Gambart in London.
Sometime after 1862, James Tissot began to shift focus from his early medievalist styles to instead match English tastes for narrative paintings of Victorian life and society.
James Tissot quickly gained success among British audiences and was lauded for his photorealistic, narrative style of art that combined meticulous training with an impressionistic use of color and value.
James Tissot led a tumultuous life outside of painting, fighting in the Franco-Prussian War as part of the improvised defence of Paris; First by joining two companies of the Garde Nationale and later as part of the radical Paris Commune, though he is believed to have only joined the latter to protect his own belongings rather than for shared ideology.
James Tissot used the name Coide in the magazine from 1869 to 1873.
James Tissot produced Ball on Shipboard in 1874 with a similar subject, depicting a diverse range of contemporary national flags sewn together in a large awning.
Once established in London, James Tissot quickly developed his reputation as a painter of elegantly dressed women shown in scenes of fashionable life.
James Tissot gained membership of The Arts Club in 1873, and his paintings appealed greatly to wealthy British industrialists throughout the second half of the 19th century.
James Tissot is considered a core figure of Japonisme alongside contemporaries such as Alfred Stevens and Claude Monet, a widespread artistic movement formed in response to the sudden influx of Japanese art, textiles, and curiosities into the European market as a result of the forced opening of trade relations with Japan in 1853 and subsequent Meiji Restoration in 1868.
James Tissot ultimately refused but would remain a close acquaintance of the group.
James Tissot regularly saw Whistler, who influenced Tissot's Thames river scenes.
In 1875 or 1876, James Tissot met Kathleen Newton, an Irish divorcee who became the painter's companion and frequent sitter.
James Tissot quickly began an intimate relationship with Tissot, moving in as a housemate in 1877.
Later, James Tissot often referred to these years with Newton as the happiest of his life, a time when he was able to live out his dream of being a family man.
The last major exhibition of this era in James Tissot's life took place in 1885, with a 15-painting series titled, displayed at the Galerie Sedelmeyer.
James Tissot spent the last years of his life working on paintings of subjects from the Old Testament.
James Tissot died suddenly in Doubs, France, on 8 August 1902, while living in the Chateau de Buillon, a former abbey which he had inherited from his father in 1888.
James Tissot's grave is in the chapel sited within the grounds of the chateau.
James Tissot's images provided a foundation for contemporary films such as the twin-angel prop design for the Ark of the Covenant in Raiders of the Lost Ark and lifestyle themes in The Age of Innocence.