Henry De Groux

Henry de Groux (15 September 1866 – 12 January 1930)"Colours of the War: Art Work of Belgian Soldiers at the Front (1914–1918): A Selection of the Collections kept at the Royal Army Museum in Brussels; published 2000; ; page 57 was a Belgian Symbolist painter, sculptor and lithographer. His 1889 painting ''Christ attacked by a mob'' made when he was only 22 years old established his reputation as an innovative Symbolist painter and ensured his admission to the progressive artistic circles in Brussels. He spent most of his active career in Paris. He produced many works depicting the horrors of the First World War in the latter part of his career.

Life

De Groux was born in Brussels. He was the son of the painter and engraver Charles de Groux. Like his father, he trained at the Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts in Brussels. Henry was elected a member of Les XX in 1886, but was expelled in 1890 when he refused to have his works displayed in the same gallery as Vincent van Gogh. He shared a studio with the Belgian painter William Degouve de Nuncques for a time in the 1880s.Delevoy, Robert L. (1978) ''Symbolists and Symbolism''. Skira/Rizzoli International Publications, Inc., New York, 230 pp.

De Groux subsequently moved to Paris, where he befriended Émile Zola. During the social unrest resulting from the Dreyfus affair, de Groux acted as one of Zola's bodyguards. In Paris he met other artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Whistler, Gauguin, Ensor, Rodin and Debussy. He also frequented many writers, including his future son-in-law Emile Baumann, Stéphane Mallarmé, Guillaume Apollinaire, Oscar Wilde, Léon Bloy – with whom he maintained a fusional friendship – Verlaine, Zola, Heredia, Gide, Milosz, Remy de Gourmont and Joris-Karl Huysmans.

Henri de Groux exhibited all over Europe at the salons of Paris, Brussels, Ostend, Spa, Amsterdam, London and Florence. In the latter places he was interned in a psychiatric hospital. He escaped from it and walked all the way to back to Marseille.

He illustrated various literary works. He contributed lithographs to ''L'Estampe originale'' (1893) and ''L'Épreuve'' (1895).

De Groux had a reputation of a bohemian living a wild and disorderly life. In the preamble of Léon Bloy's book ''La Femme pauvre'' (The Poor Woman) de Groux is described as follows: ''With the exception of our great painter Henry de Groux, who has descended as deeply as you and as heartily into my black pit?'' (La Part Commune Edition, 1897).

His elder daughter Elisabeth de Groux was an engraver. She married Emile Baumann who after his father in law's death wrote a revealing biography titled ''The terrible life of Henry de Groux'' (1936).

De Groux died in Saint-Josse-ten-Noode on 12 January 1930.

Work

As well as a painter, de Groux was a fervent diarist. Starting from 1892, he produced 18 volumes detailing his life as a European artist in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. In 2002, his descendants donated these volumes to the Institut national d'histoire de l'art; selected excerpts were published in 2007.Publication : Henry de Groux 1866–1930, Journal
at www.latribunedelart.com

Apollinaire wrote of De Groux's exhibition in Paris at the Salon d'Automne 1911, praising with "...gives one the impression of an immense labor and a sensibility of the highest order..."

Gallery

Paintings

File:1889 Christ aux outrages (de Groux).JPG, ''Christ Attacked by a Mob'' (1889), oil on canvas,
File:Bacchanal (date unknown), oil on canvas, 90 x 83 cm., private collection.jpg, ''Bacchanal'' (date unknown), oil on canvas, 90 x 83 cm., private collection
File:The Barque of Don Juan (date unknown), oil on canvas, 75 x 104 cm., private collection.jpg, ''The Barque of Don Juan'' (date unknown), oil on canvas, 75 x 104 cm., private collection
Image:Henry De Groux001.jpg, ''Ride of the Valkyries'' (ca. 1890), Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
File:The Great Upheaval (1893), oil on canvas, 76 x 98 cm., private collection.jpg, ''The Great Upheaval'' (1893), oil on canvas, 76 x 98 cm., private collection
File:Zola aux Outrages.png, ''Zola Insulted'' (1898), oil on canvas, 81 x 109,5 cm., private collection
File:The Death of Siegfried (1899), oil on canvas, 118 x 148 cm., private collection.jpg, ''The Death of Siegfried'' (1899), oil on canvas, 118 x 148 cm., private collection
File:GrottoGroux.jpg, ''The Grotto'' (c. 1900), demotions unknown
File:Figures at a Ball (c. 1902), oil on canvas, demotions unknown, private collection.jpg, ''Figures at a Ball'' (c. 1902), oil on canvas, demotions unknown, private collection
File:Henry De Groux.James Ensor.JPG, ''Portrait of James Ensor'' (1907), oil on canvas, Mu.ZEE, Ostend
File:Henry de Groux-Verlaine.jpg, ''Portrait of Paul Verlaine'' (date unknown), oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm., Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, Brussels
File:Henry de groux, la morte di andronico, 1926.jpg, ''The Death of Andronicus'' (1926), Fin-de-Siècle Museum (French: Musée Fin-de-Siècle, Brussels

Prints and graphics

File:Uil met twee uilskuikens zittend op tak Étude de trois chouettes L'Epreuve (serietitel), RP-P-1967-1045.jpg, ''Owl with Two Chicks Sitting on Branch'' (1893), lithograph, 34.5 x 25 cm.
File:Grenade launcher Henry de Groux.jpg, ''Grenade Launcher'' (c. 1914–1918)
File:Masques à gaz.jpg, ''Gas Masks'' (c. 1914–1918)
File:L'ecatombe Henry de Groux.jpg, ''The Massacre'' (c. 1914–1918), etching and soft-ground etching
File:Dies irae by Henry de Groux.jpg, '' Dies irae'' (c. 1914–1918)
File:Henry de Groux by his daughter Elisabeth de Groux.png, ''Portrait of Henry de Groux'' by his daughter Elisabeth

Notes

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Groux, Henry De
1866 births
1930 deaths
Belgian artists
Belgian Symbolist painters
Belgian lithographers
Artists from Brussels
19th-century Belgian painters
19th-century Belgian male artists
20th-century Belgian painters
20th-century Belgian sculptors
19th-century Belgian sculptors
Académie Royale des Beaux-Arts alumni
20th-century Belgian male artists
20th-century lithographers