Biographies

Honoré Daumier (1808 – 1879) Born in Marseille, Honoré Daumier (1808-1879) spent most of his life in Paris. Raised in a poor family, he took drawing lessons for the first time in 1822 from the renowned artist and archaeologist Alexandre Lenoir. In his spare time, Honoré Daumier sketched at the Académie Suisse and at the Louvre. In 1830, after learning the still fairly new process of lithography, he began to contribute political cartoons to the anti-government weekly La Caricature. He was an ardant Republican and was sentenced to six months’ imprisonment in 1832 for his attacks on Louis-Philippe, whom he represented as “Gargantua swallowing bags of gold extorted from the people.” On the suppression of political satire in 1835 he began to work for and turned to satire of social life, but at the time of the 1848 revolution he returned to political subjects. Known mostly as a caricaturist, his artistic skill was appreciated by the painters of his time. He was, as Baudelaire said of another artist, a “painter of modern life.” , , and owned workss by Daumier. In England, the Camden Town artists admired his work. He was also an accomplished sculptor. Le Charivari Delacroix Monet Manet Degas