Louis-Augustin Augin

LOUIS-AUGUSTIN AUGIN (France, 1824-1903).
"Landscape with waterfall". 1838.
Oil on canvas glued to board.
Signed and dated in the lower margin.
Period frame.
It presents xylophages in the frame.
Measurements: 57 x 49 cm; 72,5 x 65 x 5 cm (frame).

Louis-Augustin Augin was consecrated as the leader of the landscape school of Saintonge. Son and nephew of painters of whom he was first a disciple, he then studied in Paris from 1842 to 1849 with Jules Coignet and Camille Corot, members of the Barbizon school. Returning to Rochefort after the June Revolution of 1848, he gave lessons in drawing and painting and honed his talent as a landscape painter. His art was influenced by the naturalistic style of Corot and Gustave Courbet, who stayed in Saintes in the period 1862-1863. In the company of another regionalist painter friend of Auguin, Hippolyte Pradelles, the four then formed an ephemeral open-air studio called the Port Berteau Group after the name of the beautiful site on the banks of the Charente (in the town of Bussac-sur-Charente) adopted for their joint painting sessions. During this stay, Courbet painted a portrait of Auguin, now in the Musée d'Ornans. The culmination of the fruitful convergence between the four artists was a group exhibition that brought together 170 works and was presented to the public on January 15, 1863 at the City Hall of Saintes.

A few years ago, a retrospective was devoted to the quartet's activity with the exhibition Around Courbet in Saintonge - Courbet, Corot, Auguin, Pradelles, presented from June 9 to September 16, 2007 at the Musée de l'Échevinage in Saintes.

In 1863, Augin moved his studio to Bordeaux. There he exhibited his works successfully at the Salon de la Société des Amis des Arts de Bordeaux from 1857 until his death, and opened a painting school that welcomed many students. He became a member of the Academy of Sciences, Belles Lettres and Arts of Bordeaux. On the Parisian scene the artist was admitted to the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1846 and then exhibited there regularly. He obtained a 3rd medal in 1880, then a 2nd medal in 1884. He was also awarded a prize at the Universal Exhibition of 1873 in Vienna and obtained a 3rd medal at the Universal Exhibition of 1889 in Paris. In official recognition of his artistic merits, Louis-Augustin Augin was awarded the Legion of Honor on April 3, 1894 under the heading of public instruction.

A tribute exhibition dedicated to his work was presented at the Municipal Museum of Rochefort-sur-Mer in 1974 on the occasion of the centenary of his birth.

Louis-Augustin Augin's works are in French public collections: Musée de Rochefort, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire de Cognac, Musée Montalivet. A drawing by him of the Dunes of Montalivet along the sea, acquired by the state at the Salon of 1883, is deposited in the Graphic Arts Department of the Louvre Museum.