Léon Couturier

Léon Couturier (1842-1935) A naval battle, Chateaumorand fighting oil on mahogny

circa 1895

Léon Antoine Lucien Couturier , born on December 29 , 1842 in Mâcon and died on December 21 , 1935 in Neuilly-sur-Seine, was a naturalistic painter , specializing in maritime and military subjects. Léon Couturier was admitted to the École des beaux-arts de Lyon in 1860, then went to Paris in 1864 where he was a student in the studio of Alexandre Cabanel . He participated in the defense of the capital during the siege of Paris by the Prussians in 1870. This traumatic experience of war and defeat was the source of inspiration for a first series of paintings devoted to the conflict and then to the representation of soldiers and military life. A stay in North Africa seems to be at the origin of a certain number of works dedicated to colonial troops. From the 1880s , he devoted his brush to the representation of military ships and sailors of the State. These productions earned him marks of official recognition. Appointed painter of the Navy in 1890 and decorated with the Legion of Honor on December 31, 1897, he benefited from public commissions for paintings. At the end of his life, his painting abandoned warships for fishing and fishermen . He exhibited regularly at the Salon of French artists of the National Society of Fine Arts , where he obtained a medal of 3 th class in 1881. He also received a bronze medal at the Paris Exposition in 1889 and to the ' Universal Exhibition of 1900. He also worked as a book illustrator. He signed the drawings for three collections by the poet of the sea Yann Nibor : Chansons et récits de mer (1893, preface by Pierre Loti ), Nos matelots (1895) and La Chanson des cols bleus, popular songs of the French fleet (1901) . He illustrated La Marine française by military historian Maurice Loir (1893) and La Guerre Fatale France-Angleterre by Captain Danrit (Flammarion, 1900, 2 vol.). His works are held by different french Museums : Cahors, musée de Cahors Henri-Martin Chalon-sur-Saône, musée Nicéphore-Niépce Cognac, musée d'art et d'histoire Mâcon, musée des Ursulines Paris, musée national de la Marine Versailles, musée de l'Histoire de France