A pair of unframed oil paintings showing two landscapes: in one a country house beside a wooded path and in the other a country house beside a river. Signed L. Henry on the first of them. Good condition, with signs of past restoration. To note, the two canvases have light cracking, especially in the sky area.
Lucien Félix Henry born in Sisteron (Alpes-de-Haute-Provence) on May 22, 1850 and died in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat (Haute-Vienne) on March 10, 1896 was a French painter, active in Sydney.
Lucien Henry arrived in Paris in 1867 to take a Fine Arts courses and became the model for the painter and sculptor Jean-Léon Gérôme. Socialist activist, member of the first International, he collaborated with the newspaper La Résistance. During the Franco-Prussian War and the siege of Paris (1870-1871) he was a member of the National Guard. On March 11, 1871 he was elected head of the legion of the 14th arrondissement and became “Colonel Henry”. On April 3, he took part in the exit from Châtillon, which was repelled by the Versaillese. During this unfortunate offensive he was arrested. Sentenced to death in 1872, his sentence was commuted to deportation to New Caledonia.
Pardoned in 1878, he moved to Australia in June 1879, the year of the Universal Exhibition in Sydney. In 1880, he married another exile there, Juliette Rastoul née Lopez, widow of Doctor Paul Rastoul. He then enjoyed a certain notoriety as a painter and teacher. The stained-glass windows in Sydney Town Hall are his masterpiece. He established the teaching of the arts at Sydney Technical College, as well as a uniquely Australian approach to the decorative arts, with the use of motifs inspired by local fauna and flora such as the telopea (waratah). Returning to France in 1891 in search of a publisher for a collection of his Australian watercolours, he died in 1896 in the hamlet of Pavé in Saint-Léonard-de-Noblat where he is buried.
Source: Wikipedia.
Artist: Lucien Henry (1850-1896).
Signed in lower left corner (1st landscape).
Medium: Oil on canvas.
Condition: Good general condition.
Dimensions: 46 x 55 cm. / 18 x 21 ½ in.
Frame: Unframed.
Origin: France.
