Jean-Louis Forain

(b Reims, 23 Oct 1852; d Paris, 11 July 1931). French painter, printmaker and illustrator. Around 1860 he moved with his family to Paris, where he was taught by Jacquesson de la Chevreuse (1839-1903), Jean Baptiste Carpeaux and Andr? Gill. He participated in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71) and was a friend of the poets Paul Verlaine and Arthur Rimbaud; the latter is the presumed subject of a portrait (1874; priv. col., see 1982 exh. cat., no. 1) that may have influenced Manet's late portrait of Mallarm? (1876; Paris, Louvre). Forain first met Manet through his friendship with Degas in the early 1870s at the salon of Nina de Callias. He continued to associate with Manet, meeting the group of young Impressionists at the Caf? Guerbois and the Caf? de la Nouvelle Ath?nes. In 1878 Forain painted a small gouache, Caf? Scene (New York, Brooklyn Mus.), which probably influenced Manet's Bar at the Folies-Berg?re (1881-2; London, Courtauld Inst. Gals).

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Le client, oil on canvas, 1898

Jean-Louis Forain (October 23, 1852 - July 11, 1931) was a French Impressionist painter, lithographer, watercolorist and etcher.

Forain was born in Reims, Marne but at age eight, his family moved to Paris. He began his career working as a caricaturist for several Paris journals but wanting to expand his horizons, enrolled at the École des Beaux Arts, studying under Jean-Léon Gérôme as well as another sculptor/painter, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux.

In 1891 Forain married the painter Jeanne Bosc with whom he had a son, born in 1895.

Forain was greatly influenced by Honoré Daumier plus friend and artist, Edgar Degas. He participated in four Impressionist exhibitions between 1879 and 1884. In his later years, Forain created numerous scenes of the Law Courts and other Parisian institutions plus social satires and antisemitic caricatures on late 19th and early 20th century French life. In 1931, shortly before his death, he was made a member of the Royal Academy of Arts in London.

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