Andre Bauchant

Background

André Bauchant was born on April 24, 1873, in Château-Renault, Indre-et-Loire, France. He was the son of a gardener.

Education

André Bauchant was a good student, with a particular love for classics and geography. Although he left school at the age of 14 to work as a farmer. He continued to educate himself by reading history and mythology, traveling throughout France, studying architecture, maps and telemetry.

Career

Bauchant served in the army during World War I, employed first as an accountant and then as a draftsman. He was a quick study, and was soon put in charge of charting and rangefinding. His experiences in the Army encouraged him, at the age of forty five, to become a painter.

After the completion of his military service, Bauchant returned to Touraine to work as a gardener and a horticulturist. In his spare time he painted, filling canvas upon canvas with lush floral arrangements and vivid landscapes.

Early in his career, Bauchant was supported by Le Corbusier, who wrote the first study devoted to his work in 1922. His first exhibit was in 1920 at the Salon d'Automne. In 1927, Bauchant was commissioned to design the sets and costumes for Sergei Diaghilev’s ballet Apollon Musagète.

Achievements

• André Bauchant became known along with Henri Rousseau and Camille Bombois as one of the most important self-taught artists in French history.
  
  Andre was one of the most prolific of the Naïve artists, and participated in exhibitions throughout his career, including the Salon d’Automne in 1921, the first Naïve art exhibition in 1928, and the Maîtres populaires de la réalité, organized by the Musée de Grenoble in 1937.
  
  His works are held in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the Tate Gallery in London, etc.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Birds in a Gorge

    1916

  • Animals Crossing a Flooded River with a Distant Waterfall

    1924

  • Lucretia

    1924

  • The Proclamation of American Independence

    1926

  • Vase aux Tulipes

    1926

  • Blumen in Landschaft

    1928

  • Grand bouquet of wild flowers

    1928

  • Le bouquet

    1928

  • Promenade au bord de la mer (Rencontre des fiancés)

    1928

  • La chute d'eau

    1929

  • Paysage montagneux

    1929

  • Monaco

    1930

  • Quatre amours dans les fleurs

    1930

  • Le Bassin

    1931

  • Exotic Flowers

    1933

  • Bouquet de fleurs

    1937

  • Greek Dance in a Landscape

    1937

  • Adam and Eve

    1938

  • Cleopatra's Barge

    1939

  • The Funeral Procession of Alexander the Great

    1940

  • Marine

    1945

  • Personnages et Fleurs

  • Figures in landscape

    1949

  • Cinq personnages dans un paysage de montagne

    1953

  • Flowers

    1955

  • unknown title

References

• Andre Bauchant: Catalogue Raisonne The French artist Andre Bauchant was a horticulturist by profession, and his work is marked by his close affinity with nature and his passion for ancient mythologies. This catalogue raisonne offers for the first time a comprehensive overview of Bauchant's art.