Hippolyte-Louis Lebourgeois is among the forgotten painters of the Salon des Artistes Indépendants. The Musée d'Orsay Salons Database — which has transcribed all the catalogues of art salons held in Paris and the regions between 1673 and 1914 — confirms that in 1894 he had his studio and/or home at 34 boulevard de Clichy. This mention makes him one of the oldest documented artists at the address, contemporary of Eugène Pottier (who left in 1887) and earlier than the entire list of tenants identified by later Paris census records (1926-1936).
Salon des Indépendants 1894
The 10th exhibition of the Société des Artistes Indépendants was held in Paris from 7 April to 27 May 1894 at the Palais des Arts libéraux, on the Champ-de-Mars. Founded in 1884 under the motto "No jury, no awards", the Society then promoted neo-impressionism and pointillism, and would in the following decades welcome Cézanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard, Vuillard, Munch, Matisse, Léger, Mondrian.
Lebourgeois showed there two paintings whose titles concentrate the Pigalle imaginary of the period:
- Au café concert — the caf'conc' was then the popular genre par excellence of Parisian painting; Manet (Reichshoffen cycle, 1878-1879, of which the Brasserie Reichshofen at no. 34 of the boulevard is a part), Degas, Toulouse-Lautrec, Forain, Steinlen and Raffaëlli had made it one of the most contested subjects of urban modernity.
- Une chanteuse — a subject in perfect continuity with the previous one, the café-concert singer (the diseuse, the gommeuse, the "star" of the caf'conc') being a stock figure of the Belle Époque, immortalised in particular by the lithographic posters of Toulouse-Lautrec, Chéret, Steinlen.
Presence at 34 boulevard de Clichy
34 boulevard de Clichy in 1894 is the building that has just seen Eugène Pottier leave (departed in 1887, died in Paris that same year), that has housed for several years the Brasserie Reichshofen painted by Manet, and that will open the following year (1895) the Cabaret du Néant at no. 34 as well (rotation of establishments at the same address). It is a high point of Pigalle sociology: caf'conc', themed cabarets, painters' studios in the courtyard. That Lebourgeois — a painter of café-concert scenes — should live there is perfectly consistent with his pictorial subject: he lived on the very line of the boulevard he depicted.
Limitations of the documentation
Hippolyte-Louis Lebourgeois remains to this day a minor painter whose complete biography (dates of birth and death, career before and after 1894, other salons, surviving works) has not been reconstituted. No signed work yet appears in digitised museum collections under this complete name, nor in the major auction databases (the Lebourgeois artists most frequently appearing — Albert Lebourg 1849-1928, Joseph Lebourgeois 1802-1824 — are distinct people). His presence at 34 boulevard de Clichy in 1894 — confirmed by the primary source that is the Salon catalogue — nevertheless makes him a precious witness of the artistic life of the neighbourhood at the end of the 19th century, in the heart of the decade that saw the Moulin Rouge open (1889) and Toulouse-Lautrec produce his cycle of posters (1891-1894).
Sources & resources
- Musée d'Orsay Salons Database — transcription of catalogues of art salons held in Paris and the regions between 1673 and 1914 (418 salons, 278,188 exhibitors, 508,245 works). Primary source confirming Lebourgeois's address in 1894.
- Société des Artistes Indépendants, catalogue of the 10th Salon, Paris, 1894 (7 April — 27 May, Palais des Arts libéraux, Champ-de-Mars).
- Pierre Sanchez, Catalogue raisonné du Salon des Indépendants, 1884-2000, Paris, E. Koehler, 2000 — possibly to consult for cross-checking.
- Jean Monneret, Catalogue raisonné du Salon des indépendants, 1884-2000: les Indépendants dans l'histoire de l'art, Paris, E. Koehler, 2000.
- Salon des Indépendants — Wikipédia entry; Café-concert — Wikipédia entry
- See also the page dedicated to census records and tenant registers (1926-1936), which does not cover Lebourgeois's period (Paris nominal census records available only from 1926 onwards).