Auguste Baud-Bovy 1848-1899

Born in Geneva, Auguste Baud completed his training under the painter Barthélemy Menn at the city’s École des Beaux-Arts between 1862 and 1868. At the end of his studies, he married Zoé Bovy, a talented enamel painter, whose name he adopted, signing his works “Baud-Bovy.” Strongly influenced by his brother-in-law Henri-Daniel Bovy and by the artistic circle known as the “Bovy Colony” at the Château de Gruyères, he came into contact there with Corot, Courbet, and other figures of the Romantic avant-garde.

In 1870, the couple settled in Geneva, where they welcomed Courbet during his exile in 1873. To support themselves, Baud-Bovy taught drawing in municipal art schools at least until 1880. At the same time, eager to develop his own artistic career, he regularly submitted works to the Paris Salon from 1875 onward.

After traveling to Spain (where he mixed with Romani communities, copied works by Goya, and brightened his palette), he moved with his family to Paris in 1882, settling in the home of the sculptor Barrias. There, he associated with Symbolist circles, including Puvis de Chavannes, Rodin, and Huysmans. However, deeply drawn to the Swiss mountains, he made his first journey to Aeschi in the Bernese Oberland in 1885 and settled there permanently in 1888.

Between 1891 and 1892, together with Eugène Burnand and Francis Furet, he produced the Panorama of the Bernese Alps (Panorama des Alpes bernoises), an ambitious project demonstrating his mastery of large-scale alpine landscapes. The work was presented at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893. That same year, on the recommendation of his friends Puvis and Rodin, he was awarded the Legion of Honor, followed in 1897 by a major retrospective devoted to his work at the Durand-Ruel Gallery.