Henri Le Fauconnier

Henri Le Fauconnier

Henri Victor Gabriel Le Fauconnier (July 5, 1881 – December 25, 1946) was a French cubist painter born in Hesdin.

Henri Le Fauconnier studied in the studio of Jean-Paul Laurens, then in the Academie Julian. He exhibited at the Salon des Indépendants in 1905, implementing bold colors in line with Henri Matisse. He moved to Brittany in 1907 and painted the rocky landscapes of Ploumanac'h, characterized by chastened tones of brown and greens with thick outlines delimiting the simplified forms. He explored a personal style and put it into practice; painting nudes or portraits (such as that of the poet Pierre Jean Jouve in 1909 (Musée National d'Art Moderne). Back in Paris, he mingles with the artistic and literary gathered around Paul Fort at the Closerie des Lilas in Montparnasse.

At the 1909 Salon d’Automne Le Fauconnier exhibited alongside Constantin Brancusi, Jean Metzinger and Fernand Léger.

Louis Vauxcelles, in his review of the 1910 Salon des Indépendants, made a passing and inaccurate reference to Le Fauconnier, Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Robert Delaunay and Fernand Léger, as "ignorant geometers, reducing the human body, the site, to pallid cubes."

Metzinger had written in 1910 of 'mobile perspective' as an interpretation of what would soon become known as "Cubism" with respect to Picasso, Braque, Delaunay and Le Fauconnier.

At the invitation of Wassily Kandinsky, Le Fauconnier published a theoretical text in the catalog of the Neue Künstlervereinigung (Munich, 1910). He opened his Rue Visconti studio in Paris to artists eager like him to apply the lessons of Cézanne. With Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Fernand Léger, Robert Delaunay, he contributed to the Cubist scandal of the 1911 Salon des Indépendants. Le Fauconnier exhibited his vast Les Montagnards attaqués par des ours (Mountaineers Attacked by Bears) at the Salon d'Automne of 1912 (Paris).

February 1912 Henri Le Fauconnier was appointed to succeed Jacques-Émile Blanche as chef d'atelier of the avant-garde school of art Académie de La Palette. Le Fauconnier commisioned Jean Metzinger and André Dunoyer de Segonzac as full-time instructors for the morning sessions; Eugeniusz Żak (Eugène Zak) and Jean Francis Auburtin took over in the afternoon.

Le Fauconnier was a contributing member of the Section d'Or (Puteaux Group).

He died in Paris (1946).