Artist Birthday: Pierre Prins

Pierre Prins is one of the finest, if not the finest pastel artists of any of the Impressionists, or any other artists in late 1800s France. He is sometimes called “the forgotten Impressionist” because his name is not a household word with Impressionism enthusiasts.

Artist birthday for November 26th: Pierre Prins (1838–1913 France)

Sudden Shower on the Plateau Saint-Evroult, 1894, pastel on paper, 32 x 46 cm Formerly Richard Love Gallery, Chicago, Image © 2024 Davis Art Images (13294)

Prins was renowned as a master pastel artist. He preferred working outside on landscape, although he also executed many still life pastels in the studio. He was particularly lauded for his study and depiction of clouds in pastel. The medium is versatile to the point that he could not only depict subtle nuances in shadows, but also blend to achieve amazing effects of falling rain.

The Realism movement in Europe of the 1850s to 1860s emphasized direct observation and depiction of nature without any romantic, literary, historic or allegorical overtones. Much of the subject matter of the movement was the life of the common folk, but what really blossomed was landscape painting. Painters in France such as Charles Daubigny (1817–1878) and Jean-Baptiste Camille Corot (1796–1875) advocated painting directly outdoors instead of in the studio (Daubigny had a barge as a floating studio so he could paint outdoors).

Working out of doors was a huge influence on young Impressionist Claude Monet (1840–1926) and realist Édouard Manet (1832–1883). It was to the circle of realists who painted in and around Fontainebleau (Monet painted there early in his career) that Pierre Prins was initially drawn.

Prins was born near Paris of a family of artists who worked a forge, a carpenter shop and an ivory workshop. During his formative years he learned all the jobs in the workshop. This gave him a knowledge and appreciation of materials, which led to him grinding his own colors for the rest of his life.

Prins particularly favored the work of Corot and Daubigny. In the 1860s he met Manet who became a lifelong friend. Like Manet, he was always on the fringe of the impressionists. He never took part in any of the impressionist shows 1874–1886, and his work never realized commercial success, although he worked side by side with impressionists. Only in 1890 did he have a show dedicated to his pastels in the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris. In 1897 his work was compared by critics to that of the realist Théodore Rousseau.

In 1907 Prins had his first one-person exhibition. His works were shown in a gallery where critics were enthusiastic about his work as an “accomplished Impressionist.” Ironically, this was at a time when Pablo Picasso (1881–1973) produced the ground-breaking Cubist work "Demoiselles d’Avignon". Many of the works Prins showed at the time were thirty years old.

This image is supplemental to the following Davis program:
Exploring Visual Design 4E, Chapter 4 Color -- Studio Experience, Color Harmonies with Pastels.