François Flameng

François Léopold Flameng
Born	(1856-12-06)6 December 1856 Paris
Died	28 February 1923(1923-02-28) (aged 66) Paris
Nationality	France
Known for	Painting
Spouse	Marguerite Henriette Augusta Turquet

François Flameng (1856–1923) was a very successful French painter during the last quarter of the 19th century and the first quarter of the 20th. He was the son of a celebrated engraver and received a first-rate education in his craft.

Flameng initially received renown for his history painting and portraiture, and became a professor at the Academy of Fine Arts. He decorated such important civic buildings as the Sorbonne and the Opera Comique, and also produced advertising work. Flameng was granted France's highest civilian honor, the Legion d'Honneur, and designed France's first bank notes. He was also made an honorary Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in the 1908 Birthday Honours.

Flameng later received renown for his painting of World War I. He was named honorary president of the Society of Military Painters and an accredited documenter for the War Ministry. His work was displayed in the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris, as well as being reproduced in newsmagazines. At the time they were painted, Flameng's war paintings were derided by many critics for being too realistic and not including heroic drama (although his paintings seem romantic to eyes which have seen photographs of genocide and nuclear war).

Most of his war paintings were donated to the Musée de l'Armée in 1920. In 1919 he was elected into the National Academy of Design as an Honorary Corresponding Academician.

• 
  Reception at Malmaison in 1802 (circa 1894)
• 
  Court Ladies Bathing in the 18th Century (1888)
• 
  A Machine Gun Company of Chasseurs Alpins in the Barren Winter Landscape of the Vosges
• 
  Retour d’un vol de nuit sur avions "Voisin" de bombardement (1918)
• 
  The pathway of life ... to which is added a biography of Dr. Talmage (1888)
• 
  Le déjeuner de Camille Desmoulins, tableau de François Flameng reproduit dans le Supplément illustré du Petit Journal (5 November 1892).

Marriage, family and friends

Francois Flameng and Paul Helleu, John Singer Sargent, 1882-85

Flameng married Marguerite Henriette Augusta Turquet (1863–?) at Neuilly-sur-Seine on 30 November 1881. Their daughter Marie married the tennis star Max Decugis, whom Flameng also painted.

François Flameng was a friend of John Singer Sargent, who painted his portrait, he also traveled with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Victor Clairin in Italy, and tutored Paul-Émile Bécat.

Works

Flameng's portraits include:

• Family Portrait of a Boy and His Two Sisters
• Fashionable Beauty
• Portrait of a Girl Holding Her Two Toy Elephants
• Portrait of Auguste Rodin
• Two portraits of Princess Zinaida Yusupova in Arkhangelskoye
• Portrait of Elsie Salomon Duveen, wife of the art dealer Joseph Duveen, an oval in the Ferens Art Gallery, Kingston-upon-Hull.
• Portrait of Queen Alexandra, consort of King Edward VII, full-length seated, in the White Drawing Room at Buckingham Palace.

Flameng's history paintings included:

• The Carnival, Venice
• Court Ladies Bathing in the 18th century
• Grolier in the House of Aldus (at Grolier Club in New York)
• Molière Demanding an Audience With King Louis XIV at Versailles
• Napoléon Studying Military History
• Reception at Malmaison, 1802

Paintings of the first world war include:

• A Machine Gun Company of Chasseurs Alpins in the Barren Winter Landscape of the Vosges
• The Battle of the Yser in 1914
• The Donkey, Somme, 1916
• The Forgotten Front
• Heavy Artillery on the Railway, October 1916

• 
  Mme Marie-Louise Fould, née Heine (1903)
• 
  Portrait of Princess Zinaida N. Yusupova with Two Sons at Arkhangelskoe (1894)
• 
  Frère et Soeurs Brother and Sisters or possibly The Picture Book or possibly Family Portrait of a Boy and his two Sisters admiring a Sketch Book (1900)

External links

• The Landscapes of War - page with a gallery of war paintings of François Flameng
• A French Artist at War - PAGE PERMANENTLY DOWN

another page with a gallery of war paintings of François Flameng

• "François,Léopold FLAMENG". geneanet.org. Retrieved 11 October 2013.