Abel BOULINEAU (1839-1934)

Lot 21
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Estimation :
1800 - 2200 EUR
Abel BOULINEAU (1839-1934)
Au lavoir, 1929 Oil on canvas, signed lower left 54,5 x 66,5 cm - 21 1/2 x 26 1/8 in. "Abel Boulineau was born to parents Abel-Joseph Boulineau, aged 36, and Bathilde Chavet, aged 26, on 16 March 1839. His father recorded the birth in Auberive's parish registry the following day. It appears the Boulineaus were an itinerant family, with roots spread across the country. Abel's brother, Aristide Boulineau (1841-1912), was born on 22 October 1841 in Cozes, France, located some 700 kilometers away from Auberive. Both Abel and Aristide were artists and painters, and the latter attended the École de Dessin de Bordeaux, where Abel may have studied as well. Aristide debuted in the Paris salon in 1868, and he exhibited there in 1870 and 1876. The Boulineau family was politically and socially well-connected. Bathilde was likely related to Emmanuel Chavet, the mayor of St. Bonnet-de-Viellevigne, whom Boulineau photographed with his family when he visited St. Bonnet in 1904. Furthermore, an inscription on a photograph of Abel's relatives indicates that Suzanne Boulineau - possibly Abel's sister - married and had two children with Frederic de Selves, brother to the highly influential government official, Justin de Selves. Boulineau produced beautiful, intimate portraits of the young Jeanne and Henri de Selves, as well as Eugénie Balguerie (née Boulineau), when he travelled to the family's estate in Barbazan. Beyond his archive at the AGO [Art Gallery of Ontario], which has yielded several clues about his life and work, little information is available on Boulineau's biography. The National Ministry of Education named Boulineau an officer of its academy in 1886. He then became an instructor of painting and drawing at the prestigious Association Polytechnique in Paris (now called l'École Polytechnique), where he met his friend, mentor, and fellow painter Edmond Louis Dupain, also a professor at that institution. Dupain presented him as a member of the Societé des Artistes Français in 1914. Nine years earlier, Boulineau had photographed his friend painting the Château Rouge in Conflans - a touching portrait that includes a small pencil sketch of Dupain at work, au verso. As of 1914, and perhaps sooner, Boulineau had a Paris address at 15 Rue de Cherche-Midi. From what can be understood by the French Regional Life collection, after 1910 Boulineau's photographic production seemed to wane, and there is no record of him making photographs after 1916. It seems he turned his attention more fully to painting after he became a Societé member. With the society's intervention in 1920, Boulineau received compensation for damage to his art work after his studio flooded. [...] Boulineau's last recorded address was in Neuilly-Sur-Seine. He died in 1934 at the Galignani retirement home there, and news of his death was published in the 1934 bulletin of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. Abel Boulineau is completely unknown in the history of photography. He was known only in his lifetime for painting and drawing - predominantly genre and landscape scenes very similar to his photographs. It is not clear where or when Boulineau learned photography, or whether he belonged to any photographic societies. [...] By contrast, his membership in groups devoted to the fine arts and academic painting is firmly documented. Boulineau may not have considered his own photographic work as art, and his interest in the medium probably did not exceed that of an amateur." Vanessa Fleet, Between Art and Artifact: The Photography of Abel Boulineau, A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Master of Museum Studies, University of Toronto: Faculty of Information, 2011, pp. 31 - 36
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