Édouard Auguste Nousveaux

Édouard Auguste Nousveaux (4 September 1811, Paris - 1867, Paris) was a French landscape painter and watercolorist. He is best known for the works he created after participating in an expedition to Senegal; many of which were used in books and travel magazines.[1]

The Prince of Joinville on the Isle of Gorée
A Village Near Dakar

Biography edit

He obtained his artistic education at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts. In 1831, barely aged twenty. he held his first showing at the Salon.

In 1842, the artist Stanislas Darondeau died of an illness contracted in Senegal, after returning from an exploratory expedition there with Governor Édouard Bouët-Willaumez. Nousveaux, then aged thirty-one, was chosen to replace him; having already displayed an affinity for exotic themes.[2] Upon his return in 1845, he exhibited nine watercolors at the Salon. They received mixed reviews.[3] He was named a Knight in the Legion of Honor in 1847.

He would continue to make use of the sketches he executed in Senegal for several more years. In 1850, he turned to making lithographs of Paris, which were poorly received and criticized for being inaccurate or anachronistic.[4] After this, there are few traces of any significant artistic production,[1] although he did some collaborative work with Le Magasin pittoresque and L'Illustration.

He continued to travel, and died after returning from a military expedition.

In 1890, Colonel Henri-Nicolas Frey used some of Nousveaux' watercolors to illustrate his book, Côte occidentale d'Afrique : vues, scènes, croquis.[5] Many publishers used his works without crediting them.[6]

References edit

  1. ^ a b Xavier Ricou, Trésors de l'iconographie du Sénégal colonial, Riveneuve, Marseille, 2007 ISBN 978-2-914214-15-5
  2. ^ Édouard Bouët-Willaumez, Description nautique des cotes de l'Afrique occidentale, comprises entre le Sénégal et l'Équateur : commencée en 1838 et terminée en 1845 par les ordres de M. le contre-amiral Jean-Baptiste Montagniès de La Roque [fr], Impr. administrative de Paul Dupont, 1849
  3. ^ "Salon de 1845 : Aquarelles, pastels, dessins", in La Revue indépendante, vol. 18-19, 1845, p.507
  4. ^ "Iconographie du vieux Paris", in Revue universelle des arts, vol. 9, 1859, p.395-396
  5. ^ Côte occidentale d'Afrique : vues, scènes, croquis, Marpon et E. Flammarion, Paris, 1890, 543 p. (Online @ Gallica)
  6. ^ Pierre Cariou, "Un peintre colonial méconnu : Édouard Nousveaux", in Notes africaines, #36-56, 1948, p.46

External links edit

  • Biography in the Dictionnaire Général des Artistes de l'École Française Depuis l'Origine des Arts du Dessin Jusqu'à Nos Jours, Vol. 2: Architectes, Peintres, by Émile Bellier de la Chavignerie @ Google Books