| Henri Michel-Lévy | |
| Birth Name: | Henri Lévy |
| Birth Date: | 11 July 1844 |
| Birth Place: | Passy, France |
| Death Place: | Paris, France |
| Resting Place: | Montmarte Cemetery |
| Nationality: | French |
| Known For: | portraits, landscape paintings, genre paintings, pastels |
| Notable Works: | Peintre Eugène Boudin peignant des animaux dans la prairie de Deauville", oil on canvas, 22 x 27 cm (1880), "André Malraux modern art museum, Le Havre, France" |
| Movement: | impressionism |
Henri Michel-Lévy (July 11, 1844 in Passy, France - September 17, 1914 in Paris), was a French impressionist painter.[1]
Lévy was the third of the four sons of Michel Lévy and Thérèse Emerique. The family lived in Paris but originated in the Lorraine province in the north-east of France. The father of Henri was a tradesman.
Lévy was a pupil of Félix Barrias (1822-1907) and of Antoine Vollon (1833-1900). Henri Lévy changed his name to Henri « Michel-Lévy » by adding his father's first name to its surname. This was allegedly done to avoid confusion with other homonyms at that time.[2]
Lévy was an artist but also an art collector as can be seen from the works of Watteau, Boucher and Fragonard that were included in his posthumous sale.[3]
His grave is located in the Montmartre Cemetery.[4]
Henri Michel-Lévy met regularly with French impressionists, in particular Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet and Eugène Boudin from whom he got most probably his modern taste. He was a portraitist and often painted subjects going about their usual business,[5] as often found as a common thread in Impressionist painting. Lévy is known for Painting of Eugène Boudin (1880) as the famous painter is himself sketching cows in the fields near Honfleur.[6] His subjects are not professionals but rather found in his social circle, like the wife of his friend, Edgar Degas or his own family.
From 1868 to 1886, Henri Michel-Lévy exhibited at the Salon in Paris, where he was awarded "honorable" mention in 1880 and a third-class medal in 1881. He won a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889. He participated in the Salon between 1868 and 1914.[7]
In 1878, he was represented by Edgar Degas in his atelier (see insert picture)[8] on a painting presented at the fourth Impressionist exhibition in 1879. The painting to the right of Michel-Lévy was identified by Theodore Reff as The Regattas, a painting from Michel-Lévy that was photographically documented but whose whereabouts remain unknown.[9] Michel-Lévy and Degas exchanged portraits of each other on that occasion. But soon after Michel-Lévy sells Degas' painting, which irritates Degas who disdainfully comments: "You have done a despicable thing; you knew very well that I couldn't sell your portrait".[10]
In 1885, he painted the portrait of Auguste Guerbois,[11] the owner of Café Guerbois (nearby Place de Clichy) not too far from Montmartre where painters used to meet. Art historian Ronald Pickvance suggested that Michel-Lévy may have been the painter of the portrait, Madame Lévy, which is usually believed to have been painted by Édouard Manet.[12]
As a landscape painter, Henri Michel-Lévy focused on the peasant life away from the romantic views of the time. But a large portion of his exterior paintings dealt with the middle-class life of the 19th century. An example of that is a painting at the beach (Le Pouligen, la plage) that can be found at Museum Baron Martin, Gray, France in a style that is reminiscent of Boudin's work. Similarly, the painting found as background in Degas's portray of Michel-Lévy revisiting the theme of Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe.
The following paintings are exposed in museums across France:
Content in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at ; see its history for attribution.
![Peintre Eugène Boudin peignant des animaux dans la prairie de Deauville"](http://www.muma-lehavre.fr/sites/default/files/thumbnails/image/bd_michel_levy_boudin_peignant.jpg"Le){kind=link}
