Henri-Edmond Cross

Background

Cross was born in Douai, Nord, France, on May 20, 1856. His ancestors were connected with ironmongery. Cross was the son of Alcide Delacroix, a French adventurer, and Fanny Woollett. He had no surviving siblings.

Education

In 1865 Henri-Edmond Cross's family moved to a place near Lille, a northern French city not far from the Belgian border. His uncle, Dr. Auguste Soins, was the first to recognized Cross's artistic talent and was very supportive of his artistic inclinations. In 1866 Soins even paid for the boy's first drawing instructions under painter Carolus-Duran. Henri was Duran's disciple for a year.

Cross continued his studies in Paris in 1875. There he was trained by François Bonvin before returning to Lille. He attended the École des Beaux-Arts, and in 1878 he became a student of the Écoles Académiques de Dessin et d'Architecture, attending for three years Alphonse Colas' studio. After moving to Paris in 1881, his art education continued under Émile Dupont-Zipcy.

Career

Cross's early artworks, mainly portraits and still lifes, were created in the dark colours of Realism. 1881 was the year of his first exhibition at the Salon des Artistes Français. He painted many landscapes on an 1883 trip to the Alpes-Maritimes, during which he met Paul Signac, who became a close friend and artistic influence.

Cross co-founded the Société des Artistes Indépendants 1884; it consisted of artists dissatisfied with the practices of the official Salon, and presented unjuried exhibitions without prizes. There, Henri-Edmond Cross met and became friends with many artists connected with the Neo-Impressionist movement, including Georges Seurat, Albert Dubois-Pillet, and Charles Angrand.

Despite the artist's association with the Neo-Impressionists, Henri-Edmond Cross did not immediately adopt their style. His works were still greatly influenced by Jules Bastien-Lepage and Édouard Manet, as well as by the style of Impressionism. The change from his early, gloomy, Realist works was gradual. His colour palette subsequently became lighter, he began working in the brighter colours of Impressionism. He also created some of his works en plein air.

In the latter part of the 1880s, Cross painted pure landscapes influenced by Claude Monet and Camille Pissarro. Soon he became one of the first proponents of Pointillism along with Signac and used Divisionist colour theory in his art pieces. In 1891 Cross began working in the Neo-Impressionist style, and presented his first large piece using this technique during an Indépendants show. The artwork was a portrait of the lady who he went on to marry a couple of years down the line - Madame Hector France.

Henri-Edmond Cross suffered from rheumatism and in 1891, moved to warmer climes in the south of France, initially to live in Cabasson near Le Lavandou and after some time, in Saint-Claire where he spent the remainder of his life, leaving only for trips to Italy in 1903 and 1908, and for his annual Indépendants exhibits in Paris. In 1892 Cross's friend Paul Signac moved to nearby Saint-Tropez; there they frequently hosted gatherings in Cross's garden, attended by such celebrities as André Derain, Henri Matisse, and Albert Marquet.

In 1905 Galerie Druet in Paris organized Cross's first one-man exhibition, which featured thirty paintings and thirty watercolours by the artist. The show was extremely successful, receiving critical acclaim, and a lot of works were sold. Belgian Symbolist poet Emile Verhaeren, an avid supporter of Neo-Impressionism in his native country, provided the introduction for the exhibition catalogue.

Achievements

• 

  Henri-Edmond Cross was a leading Neo-Impressionist painter, a pioneer of Pointillism, and also a founding member of the Salon des Indépendants. His works were instrumental in the development of Fauvism.
  
  Henri-Edmond Cross' best-known artworks include Beach at Cabasson (1892), L’Air du Soir (1894), The Washerwoman (1896), Cypresses at Cagnes (1900), The Flowered Column (1901), A Pine Wood, Provence (1906), Bathers (1907).
  
  Matisse and other artists were greatly inspired by the late-career Cross. Among the other artists influenced by Cross were Albert Marquet, André Derain, Henri Manguin, Charles Camoin, Jean Puy, and Louis Valtat.
  
  Today, Cross's works can be found in various museums and public art galleries, including the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, Ohio; the Barnes Foundation, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Finnish National Gallery, Helsinki, Finland; the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia; the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland; the Museum of modern art André Malraux, Le Havre, France; the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, Cologne, Germany, etc.

Works

More photos

• painting

  • Family of Swans

  • Chaine des Maures

  • Bathers

  • The Clearing

  • Cabasson Landscape

  • A Pine Wood, Provence

  • Sailboats near Chicago

  • Ronde

  • Flowers

  • Provence Landscape

  • Cypress, April

  • In the Shade

  • Rio San Trovaso, Venice

  • Trees by the Sea

  • Pines by the Sea

  • Women Tying the Vine

  • A Garden in Provence

  • Landscape

  • San Giorgio Maggiore, Venice

  • Landscape

  • Bathers

  • Antibes

  • Woded Landscape

  • The Bay of Cavalieri

  • Beach on the Mediterranian

  • Toulon, Winter Morning

  • Plage de la Vignassa

  • Landscape, the Little Maresque Mountains

  • The Canal near St. Tropez

  • Coastal View with Cypress Trees

  • Barges

  • An Incoming Storm

  • The Evening Air

  • Peasant Woman Stretched out on the Grass

  • The Grape Harvest

  • Excursion

  • Study for The Grape Pickers

  • View of Menton

  • La Donana, Venice

  • The Beach, Evening

  • The Forest

  • The Flowered Terrace

  • Rocks at Trayas

  • Saint-Clair Landscape

  • Around My House

  • The Flowered Column

  • Lavender

  • The Maures

  • Study for The Clearing

  • The Farm, Morning

  • Bathers

  • Cape Layet, Provence

  • Landscape with Sunset

  • The Hair

  • River in Saint-Clair

  • The Mediterranean, East Wind

  • In the Luxembourg Gardens

  • La Dogana

  • The Bay of Cavaliere (study)

  • The Viaduct

  • The Fourth of July by the Sea

  • Flowers in a Glass

  • The Choppy Sea

  • Sunset on the Lagoon, Venice

  • In the Woods

  • Boats in the Port of St. Tropez

  • Land by the Sea

  • The Flowered Column

  • Venetian Canal

  • Provence Landscape

  • Landscape

  • The Pink House

  • Ponte San Trovaso

  • Under the Pines

  • Landscape

  • Woman in the Park

  • Sunset

  • Landscape

  • Cypresses

  • Siesta by the Water

  • The Return of the Fisherman

  • Venice, Palazzo Venier dei Leoni

  • The Washerwoman

  • Young Woman (Study for The Clearing)

  • Antibes, Afternoon

  • Canal de la Guidecca, Venice

  • Landscape with Stars

  • Untitled

  • The Iles d'Or, Var

  • Regatta

  • Fisherman

  • The Undergrowth

  • La Plage de Saint-Clair

  • Portrait of Madame Cross

  • The Port of Marseilles

  • Coastal Landscape

  • Antibes, Morning

  • By the Mediterranean

  • Les Petits, Montagnes Mauresques

  • Shepherd and Sheep

  • A Venetian Canal

  • The Farm, Evening

  • Afternoon at Pardigon, Var

  • View of the Church of Santa Maria degli Angeli, near Assisi

  • Aguttes

  • The Wood

  • Corner of the Garden in Monaco

  • Landscape with Goats

  • A Pine Tree

  • Coast Near Antibes

  • The Pink Cloud

  • The Mediterranean Coast

  • The Shipwreck

  • Still Life with Bottle of Wind

  • The Excursionists

  • Pines by the Sea

  • Beach at Cabasson

  • Bathers

  • Ranelagh

  • The Blue Boat

  • Mme. Hector France, nee Irma Clare

  • Study for The Grape Pickers

  • The Wreck

  • The Cypresses at Cagnes

  • Sailboats

  • The Seine by the Trocadero

  • Boats

Politics

Henri-Edmond Cross believed in anarchist principles, hoping for a utopian society. In 1896 Cross produced a lithograph, L'Errant (The Wanderer). The piece was featured anonymously in Les Temps Nouveaux, Jean Grave's anarchist journal. The artist's anarchist sentiments influenced his choice of subjects: he painted scenes depicting a utopian world that could exist through anarchism.

Personality

Henri-Edmond Cross changed his name in 1883 because it was too similar to that of Henri-Eugène Delacroix, another French painter.

Physical Characteristics: In the early 1880s, Henri-Edmond Cross began to experience trouble with his eyes, which grew more severe in the 1900s. He also suffered from arthritis. In 1909 Cross was diagnosed with cancer.

Interests

• Artists

  Paul Signac, Jules Bastien-Lepage, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro

Connections

Henri-Edmond Cross married Madame Hector France, née Irma Clare, in 1893. The couple never had children.

Spouse:

Madame Hector France

Friend:

Paul Signac

Paul Signac (1863-1935) was a French painter, who represented Neo-impressionism movement and helped to develop the Pointillist style. Also, he was known as a co-founder of the Société des Artistes Indépendants in Paris.

Friend:

Georges Seurat

Georges-Pierre Seurat (1859-1891) was a French painter and leading figure in the neo-impressionist movement of the 1880s. He was considered the creator of the "pointillism", a style of painting in which small distinct points of primary colours create the impression of a wide selection of secondary and intermediate colours.

Friend:

Albert Dubois-Pillet

Albert Dubois-Pillet (1846-1890) was a French amateur painter and a military officer. He worked in Post-Impressionism style and was one of the pioneers of Pointillism.

Friend:

Charles Angrand

Charles Théophile Angrand (1854-1926) was a French painter and draftsman. He was an important member of the Neo-Impressionist movement in the late 1880s and early 1890s.

References

• Color and Light: The Neo-Impressionist Henri-Edmond Cross This illustrated book examines the artistic career of the French painter and draftsman Henri-Edmond Cross who was a key figure in the development of European modernism.
  2019
• Neo-Impressionist Painters: A Sourcebook This reference provides biographical, historical, and critical information on Neo-Impressionist painting and its most significant painters.
  1999
• Henri-Edmond Cross: 120 Masterpieces This Art Book with Foreword by Maria Tsaneva contains 120 selected reproductions of paintings and watercolors from Henri-Edmond Cross.
  2014