Louis Valtat

Lisieux – The Artists – Valtat, Louis

This page forms part of a series of pages dedicated to the many artists who worked in Lisieux. A full list of all the artists with a link to their works can be found at the bottom of this page.

NOTE: To our knowledge, Valtat did not work in Lisieux itself, but instead worked in nearby Bernay.

Louis Valtat
Louis Valtat

Movement(s): Fauvism

Louis Valtat (1869 – 1952) was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Fauves (“the wild beasts”, so named for their wild use of color), who first exhibited together in 1905 at the Salon d’Automne. He is noted as a key figure in the stylistic transition in painting from Monet to Matisse.

Louis Valtat was born on 8 August 1869 in Dieppe, in the Normandy region of France, into a wealthy family of ship owners. Valtat spent many of his childhood years in Versailles, a suburb of Paris, where he attended secondary school at the Lycee Hoche (near the Palace of Versailles).

Encouraged by his father, an amateur landscape painter himself, Valtat became interested in art. At age 17, deciding to pursue an artistic career, he applied to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Paris. He was accepted, and in 1887 Valtat moved to Paris to enroll at the Ecole, where he studied with the well-known academic artists Gustave Boulanger (1824–1888), Jules Lefebvre (1836–1911), and later with Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant (1845–1902).

During the early period in his career, Valtat used the spontaneous light touches of Impressionism (although with bordered objects) and the colorful dots found in Pointillism.

Valtat exhibited widely during his career. In 1894, he collaborated with both Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Albert Andre in creating the decor for the Paris theater “L’Œuvre” at the request of Lugné Poë.

Valtat suffered from tuberculosis, and he spent many autumn/winter seasons along the Mediterranean coast in Banyuls, Antheor and Saint-Tropez. Beginning in 1900, Valtat made several journeys by bicycle to visit Auguste Renoir at the Maison de la Poste in Cagnes. There, Valtat made several portrait drawings of Renoir on which he based a subsequent woodcut, and the two artists collaborated on a sculpture of Cézanne. Another friend of Valtat was Paul Signac, whom he visited often, traveling in a small Bollée motorcar that he acquired ca. 1904 from Signac in exchange for his painting Women at the Seashore.

Click here to read Valtat’s full bio on Wikipedia.

NOTE: Click on any image below for a bigger version (no new window will open).

Bernay

Bernay is a large town (population: 10,000) located to the East of Lisieux.

1892 - Louis Valtat - Path and house with posters, Bernay
1892 – Louis Valtat – Path and house with posters, Bernay
1895 - Louis Valtat - Bernay, the Abbey square
1895 – Louis Valtat – Bernay, the Abbey square

Valtat made many paintings in Normandy and France. Here are the places he painted in Normandy (a link “” to his works will appear below when published.):

Lisieux was (and is) a town that saw a good number of artists working there. It’s an old but well preserved town. Here are some of the artists that have come to apply their art in the town (a link, symbolized by a ““, to the artist’s works will appear when published. A “*” indicates that the artist did not work directly in Lisieux but instead worked outside of Lisieux in a nearby town).

NOTE: You can subscribe to our new articles by entering your email address in the box on the right column (or at the very bottom of this article) and clicking on the button “Subscribe”.

You will need to check your incoming emails and validate your subscription. If you can’t see an email from us, check your Spam folder. Without validating your email address, you will not get notifications from us. WE WILL NEVER GIVE YOUR EMAIL ADDRESSES TO ANYONE!

Related Posts

  • 88
    Lisieux – The Artists – Cotman, John SellJohn Cotman, a British painter, was quite active in Normandy. He spent a lot of time painting in Caen and Ouistreham (suburb of Caen). Here is one of his paintings we found for Lisieux, Normandy.
  • 88
    Lisieux – The Artists – Thorigny, FelixFelix Thorigny (1824, Caen – 1870, Paris) was a French master draughtsman, veduta painter and landscape painter. He worked extensively in Paris and London. Not much else is known about this artist. Here are some of his works we found dealing with Lisieux in Normandy.
  • 87
    Lisieux – The Artists – Dibdin, Thomas ColmanThomas Robert Colman Dibdin (1810 – 1893) was an English watercolour artist and teacher. Dibdin was born in Bletchworth, Surrey. He first worked in a post office. He became an artist at the age of 28 and he went to France, Germany and Belgium. He also did paintings in Gibraltar…
  • 87
    Lisieux – The Artists – Rooke, Thomas MatthewsThomas Matthews Rooke (1842 – 1942) was a British watercolourist. He worked as a designer, as an assistant to other artists, and was commissioned by John Ruskin to make architectural drawings. Here are his works for Lisieux, Normandy.
  • 87
    Lisieux – The Artists – Boggs, Frank MyersFrank 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…
Scroll to Top