Le Havre, 2nd largest harbour of France and 5th largest container harbour in Europe. Le Havre was bombed extensively during WWII and rebuilt by famous architect Auguste Perret. The city is now part of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Gustave Madelain (1867 – 1944) was French painter with his own interpretation of French post Impressionism. Madelain showed a number of canvases at Le Havre and at Rouen; though it was naturally in Paris that he had his greatest success.
Despite being known for having painted in Le Havre, we only found one of his paintings of the city.
Maximilien Luce (1858 – 1941) was a prolific French Neo-impressionist artist, known for his paintings, illustrations, engravings, and graphic art, and also for his anarchist activism.
We found only one of his paintings dealing with Le Havre.
William Lee Hankey was a British painter and book illustrator. He specialised in landscapes, character studies and portraits of pastoral life, particularly in studies of mothers with young children.
He spent quite some time painting in Normandy and Brittany. However, we found only one painting of his dealing with Le Havre.
James Kay was a Scottish artist notable for his paintings of the landscapes and shipping. Born on the Isle of Arran, Kay spent much of his working life with a studio in Glasgow and living at Portincaple on Loch Long in Argyll and Bute. He was elected to the Royal Scottish Society of Painters in Watercolour (RSW) in 1906 and to the Royal Scottish Academy in 1938. He had one daughter, artist Violet McNeish Kay.
He spent time painting in Normandy, here are his paintings he made in Le Havre.
Rene de Saint-Delis, 1876 – 1958, was a French painter influenced by the Impressionist movement. He was born in the North of France (Pas-de-Calais) and died in Etretat, Normandy. Here are his works for Le Havre
Henri de Saint-Delis (brother of Rene) was a French painter who never wanted to sell his paintings, and kept them all for himself. The public only discovered his paintings in 1954. He went to school in Le Havre where he befriended several (now) famous painters.
Here are his works we found for Le Havre.
Jules Achille Noël, born Louis Assez Noël (1815-1881) was a French landscape and maritime painter who worked primarily in Brittany and Normandy.
His style was compared to Eugène Isabey and he won the praise of Baudelaire. Here are his works dealing with the city of Le Havre.
Charles-Louis Mozin (1806 – 1862) was born into a family of musicians, Charles-Louis Mozin studied with Xavier Leprince. Primarily a painter and lithographer of coastal landscapes, harbour views and seascapes, he exhibited at the Salons in Paris between 1824 and 1861.
Along with Eugene Isabey and Richard Parkes Bonington, Mozin was one of the first artists to paint landscapes depicting the beach and fishing port of Trouville in Normandy, which he discovered around 1825, and where he settled in 1839.
He also travelled in Germany and Holland, where he frequently exhibited his work between 1840 and 1850. Landscape paintings by Mozin are today in the museums of Amiens, Honfleur, Rouen, Toulon, Trouville, Versailles, and elsewhere, while a number of views of Paris are in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris.
Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray (1820 – 1884) has been called “the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century” because of his technical innovations, his instruction of other noted photographers, and “the extraordinary imagination he brought to picture making.”He was an important contributor to the development of the wax paper negative.
Gustave Le Gray was born in 1820 in Villiers-le-Bel, Val-d’Oise. He was originally trained as a painter, studying under François-Édouard Picot and Paul Delaroche. He lived in Italy between 1843-1846 and painted portraits and scenes of the countryside. Le Gray exhibited his paintings at the salon in 1848 and 1853. He then crossed over to photography in the early years of its development.
He was a successful portrait photographer, capturing figures such as Napoleon III and Edward VII. He also became famous for his seascapes, or marine. He spent 20 years in Cairo, Egypt, but there are few works from this period.
Here are his photos he made in the port city of Le Havre, Normandy.
Louis-Philippe Crépin was a French marine painter. Together with Théodore Gudin, he was appointed as one of France’s first two Peintres de la Marine in 1830.
He studied marine painting with Joseph Vernet and landscapes with Hubert Robert. Before that, he had been a sailor with four years of experience as a helmsman and gabier (a seaman in charge of the sails). He had his first exhibit at the Paris in 1796 with “La sortie du port de Brest”. He would hold showings there intermittently until 1835.
We found one of his works of Le Havre
Georges Binet was born in Le Havre (and died in Toulon). He is a French painter known mostly for his Normandy paintings of daily life, including beaches and river scenes. He painted a lot of paintings in Le Havre and its surroundings.
William Callow (1812–1908) was an English landscape painter, engraver and water colourist. He was apprenticed to the artist Copley Fielding, where he learnt the technique of plein air sketching. He went on to study under Theodore and Thales Fielding, where he learnt to colour prints and make aquatints, and was taught watercolor painting between 1825-1827.
He travelled extensively in France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, had a large number of pupils, and enjoyed favour with the royal family.
Here are his paintings he made in Le Havre, Normandy.
Auguste-Xavier Leprince was a French painter, drawer and engraver, best known for his paintings of agrarian scenes. His father, Anne Pierre Leprince, was a painter and a lithographer. His brothers, Leopold Leprince and Gustave Leprince, were also painters.
He painted Parisian street scenes and landscapes. He also did paintings depicting the farming life in rural France. For example, his 1822 painting La moisson showed labourers harvesting a field. His 1823 painting, “Embarquement des bestiaux sur le Passager dans le port de Honfleur” (Embarkation of Cattle on the Passager at the Port of Honfleur), became emblematic of the cattle paintings of that era. It once belonged to Charles X and is currently in the Louvre.
We found only one of his paintings in Le Havre
Eugene Lepoittevin was a French landscape painter, lithographer and caricaturist. He was appointed as Peintre de la Marine for the French Ministry of Defence in 1849. His work is exhibited in many museums in France and at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.
He was trained as a painter by Louis Hersent and Xavier Leprince.
Paul Huet was a French painter and printmaker born in Paris. He met the English painter Richard Parkes Bonington. Bonington’s example influenced Huet to reject neoclassicism and instead paint landscapes based on close observation of nature. Huet’s works, which include oil paintings, watercolors, etchings, and lithographs, are Romantic in feeling.
We found one of his works for Le Havre and one for the surrounding town of Harfleur.
James Holland was an English painter of flowers, landscapes, architecture and marine subjects, and book illustrator. He worked in both oils and watercolours and was a member of the Royal Watercolour Society.
His father and other members of his family were employed at the pottery works of William Davenport in Longport. James was himself employed there, from the age of 12, for 7 years, painting flowers on pottery and porcelain. In 1819, he came to London where he continued to work as a pottery painter, but also gave lessons in drawing landscapes, architecture, and marine subjects.
He did not paint much in France, mostly Paris, but we did find one of his works dealing with Le Havre.
Adolphe Hervier, in full: Louis-Henri-Victor-Jules-François-Adolphe Hervier was a French painter and engraver, known for his rural genre scenes. Over his lifetime, his style changed from a strict Romanticism to an early type of Impressionism. He was the son of a painter.Despite being Parisian, his favorite painting locations were in Normandy; including Honfleur, Le Havre, Rouen and Granville. Here is the only painting we found of his dealing with Le Havre.
Louis-Alexandre Dubourg is a French painter, born and died in Honfleur. He worked as a commercial agent, painting as a serious hobby. It was only after meeting with a professional artist that he decided to paint for a living. He mostly painted cities in Normandy.We found only one of his works consecrated to Le Havre.
Edward William Cooke was an English landscape and marine painter, and gardener. Cooke was born in London, the son of well-known line engraver George Cooke; his uncle, William Bernard Cooke, was also a line engraver of note, and Edward was raised in the company of artists. He spent many years in The Netherlands and in Venice, Italy, but despite all his travels he managed to paint quite a lot of places in Normandy. Here are his works for Le Havre.
Frank Boggs was an American (and later French) painter (born in the USA, died in France). He studied art in Paris, and travelled between France (Normandy), The Netherlands, Italy and Belgium. He naturelized to French citizenship. He is buried next to his artist son in Paris. Here are some of his works for Le Havre and surroundings.
Here are all the artists featured on our site that have painted in Le Havre and its immediate surroundings. There’s a map with one location per artist per city. Use the map to look at that artist’s works of art.
Edward Alexander Wadsworth was an English artist, most famous for his close association with Vorticism. He painted, often in tempera, coastal views, abstracts, portraits and still-life. He was also an engraver on wood and copper. In the First World War he was involved in transferring dazzle camouflage designs onto ships for the Royal Navy, and after the war he continued to paint nautical themes. He painted one painting in Le Havre.
Joseph Mallord William Turner, known contemporarily as William Turner, was an English Romantic painter, printmaker and watercolourist. He is known for his expressive colourisations, imaginative landscapes and turbulent, often violent marine paintings. He spent a lot of time painting in Normandy, and made quite a few paintings of Le Havre and its surroundings. Here they are.
Frits Thaulow was a Norwegian Impressionist painter, best known for his naturalistic depictions of landscape. We found two paintings of his in Le Havre.
