Ker-Xavier Roussel (December 10, 1867 - June 6, 1944) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
painterPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay or concrete...
associated with
Les NabisLes Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...
.
Born François Xavier Roussel in
Lorry-lès-MetzLorry-lès-Metz is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.-See also:*Communes of the Moselle department...
,
MoselleMoselle is a department in the east of France named after the river Moselle.- History :Moselle is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
, at age fifteen he studied at the
Lycée CondorcetThe Lycée Condorcet is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France located at 8, rue du Havre in the city's IXe arrondissement. Since its inception, various political eras have seen it given a number of different names, but its identity today honors the memory of the Marquis de Condorcet. The school...
in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
; alongside his friend
Édouard VuillardJean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...
, he also studied at the studio of painter Diogène Maillart. In 1888 he enrolled in the
École des Beaux-ArtsÉcole des Beaux-Arts ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement...
, and soon began frequenting the
Académie JulianThe Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. At the time, the government sanctioned art school of France, École des Beaux-Arts, did not allow women to enroll...
where
Maurice DenisMaurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and Education:...
and other students formed the group
Les Nabis.
He is best known for paintings of French landscapes usually depicting women, children, nymphs and fauns in bucolic settings.
Ker-Xavier Roussel (December 10, 1867 - June 6, 1944) was a
FrenchFrance , officially the French Republic , is a country located in Western Europe, with several overseas islands and territories located on other continents. Metropolitan France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, and from the Rhine to the Atlantic Ocean...
painterPainting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . In art, the term describes both the act and the result, which is called a painting. Paintings may have for their support such surfaces as walls, paper, canvas, wood, glass, lacquer, clay or concrete...
associated with
Les NabisLes Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...
.
Born François Xavier Roussel in
Lorry-lès-MetzLorry-lès-Metz is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.-See also:*Communes of the Moselle department...
,
MoselleMoselle is a department in the east of France named after the river Moselle.- History :Moselle is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
, at age fifteen he studied at the
Lycée CondorcetThe Lycée Condorcet is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France located at 8, rue du Havre in the city's IXe arrondissement. Since its inception, various political eras have seen it given a number of different names, but its identity today honors the memory of the Marquis de Condorcet. The school...
in
ParisParis is the capital of France and the country's most populous city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
; alongside his friend
Édouard VuillardJean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...
, he also studied at the studio of painter Diogène Maillart. In 1888 he enrolled in the
École des Beaux-ArtsÉcole des Beaux-Arts ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement...
, and soon began frequenting the
Académie JulianThe Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. At the time, the government sanctioned art school of France, École des Beaux-Arts, did not allow women to enroll...
where
Maurice DenisMaurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and Education:...
and other students formed the group
Les Nabis.
He is best known for paintings of French landscapes usually depicting women, children, nymphs and fauns in bucolic settings. In 1899, Roussel, Vuillard, and another close friend,
Pierre BonnardPierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:Bonnard was born in Fontenay-aux-Roses. He led a happy and careless youth as the son of a prominent official of the French Ministry of War. At the insistence of his father, Bonnard studied law, graduating...
, traveled to
Lake ComoLake Como is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of 146 km², making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore...
,
VeniceVenice is a city in northern Italy, the capital of the region Veneto, a population of 271,367 . Together with Padua, the city is included in the Padua-Venice Metropolitan Area . The city historically was an independent nation...
and
MilanMilan in Italy, is the capital of the region of Lombardia and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while the urban area is the fifth largest in the E.U. with an estimated population of 4.3 million...
.
In 1926 Ker-Xavier Roussel won the
Carnegie PrizeThe Carnegie Prize is an international prize for artists, awarded by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.The prize should not be confused with the Carnegie Medal, which is awarded for children's literature.- See also :...
for art.
Ker-Xavier Roussel died in 1944 at his home in
L'Étang-la-VilleL'Étang-la-Ville is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France.It has 5000 inhabitants, of which the average salary is 50 000 €. It is currently France's 12th richest town income wise.-References:*...
,
YvelinesYvelines is a French department in the region of Île-de-France.-History:Yvelines was created from the western part of the defunct department of Seine-et-Oise on January 1, 1968 in accordance with a law passed on January 10, 1964 and a décret d'application from February 26, 1965.It gained the...
.
Roussel is mentioned in Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, chapter 3. There she recounts an exchange he had with Theodore Duret in Vollard's shop at an uncertain date after 1904. Roussel complained of the lack of recognition that he and the other Nabi painters had to contend with. Duret consoled him by pointing out his incompatibility with the manners and fashions of the bourgeois world and the differences between "art" and "official art".
External links
- Paintings by Ker-Xavier Roussel (public domain in Canada)