Bernard-Joseph Artigue 1859-1936

Originally from Muret in the Haute-Garonne region, Bernard-Joseph Artigue first trained in Toulouse in the studio of Jean-Paul Laurens before moving to Paris to enter the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Alexandre Cabanel. He made his debut at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1894, exhibiting there until 1898, before joining the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1902. From 1903 onward, he favored the Salon des Indépendants and took part in the founding of the Salon d’Automne.

An eclectic painter and pastelist, Artigue proved to be a sensitive naturalist in his portraits of young peasants and rural scenes. Moving within the circle of Henri Martin, his fellow student from Laurens’s studio, he fragmented his brushwork by applying a form of pointillism (both rigorous and luminous) to his landscapes and still lifes.

Deeply attached to his native region, Bernard-Joseph Artigue lived for a time in Toulouse on the rue des Sesquières, exhibiting regularly at the Salon of the Union Artistique of the city as well as at the Salon des Artistes Albigeois. In 1897, he chose to establish his studio permanently in Blaye-les-Mines, a village in the Tarn that he had fallen in love with during his first visit in 1878, and where he married Mathilde Laporte in 1899.

Although he resumed exhibiting regularly at the Salon des Artistes Français between 1923 and 1934 and was the subject of a retrospective at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1928, the painter remained in Blaye until the end of his life, infusing his work with the distinctive light of southwestern France.