Biography

Jacques Emile Blanche was a French painter best known for his portraits of the wealthy socialites of Paris and London. His works are painted in a style resembling that of John Singer Sargent, Édouard Manet, and Giovanni Boldini, featuring lush brushwork and realistic capturing of his sitters’ liknesses. Born on January 1, 1861 in Paris, France, his father was a renowned psychiatrist whose clients included many wealthy and fashionable members of society. Blanche never attended art school, but did have private lessons with the painters Henri Gervex and Ferdinand Jacques Humbert. Though he gained some success during his lifetime, he was mostly seen as a dilettante by his peers, accused of being more interested in fame than in contributing to the advancement of painting. Today, Blanche’s works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Musée d’Orsay in Paris, and the National Gallery in London, among others. He died on September 30, 1942 in Offranville, France.