Félix Hilaire Buhot

Born Valognes, Normandy, 9 July 1847; Died Paris, 26 April 1898.

French printmaker, painter, draughtsman and writer. He moved to Paris in 1866 and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Isidore-Alexandre-Augustin Pils. In 1867 he enrolled in a drawing course run by Horace Lecoq de Boisbaudran, and the following year he studied with the marine painter Jules Noël (1815–81). He learnt the techniques of etching from Louis Monziès (b 1849) and Adolphe Lalauze (1838–1905) around 1873, producing his first etching later that year. He concentrated on landscapes and urban scenes such as Cabs, a Winter Morning at the Quai de l’Hôtel-Dieu (1876; Washington, DC, N.G.A.). Many of these etchings combine a central image with a margin of supplementary illustrations, which the artist described as either anecdotal or ‘symphonic’, the latter being evocative additions rather than narrative extensions to the main image. They were published in L’Art, then directed by Léon Gaucherel, and also in Roger Lesclide’s Paris à l’eau-forte. Buhot also illustrated books such as Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly’s novels Une Vieille Maîtresse (Paris, 1879) and L’Ensorcelée (Paris, 1897), Alphonse Daudet’s Lettres de mon moulin (Paris, 1882) and Octave Uzanne’s Les Zigzags d’un curieux (Paris, 1888).

Buhot first exhibited at the Salon in 1875 and in the late 1870s and early 1880s he concentrated on painting, producing works such as La Butte des Moulins during the Demolition for the Avenue de l’Opéra (1878; Paris, Carnavalet). He had a great love for England, which he first visited in 1876, returning in 1879 and on other occasions. His second visit inspired Landing in England (1879; Caen, Mus. B.-A.), an atmospheric etching which the artist considered characteristic of his work: it shows its links with Romanticism through its depiction of the power and grandeur of nature (in this case a storm at a landing pier on the coast). By the early 1880s Buhot’s graphic output had begun to decrease, though his reputation was growing. Helped by his acquaintance with the print dealer Frederick Keppel (1845–1912) in New York, he found a large market in the USA. Throughout much of his life Buhot wrote essays; he also contributed to the Journal des Arts between 1884 and 1892. In 1890 he succumbed to a profound depression and by 1892 had given up etching altogether, producing only a handful of lithographs.

"Buhot, Félix." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T012139 (accessed March 8, 2012).