Eugene Laurent Vail (1857-1934)
'Leonie' Etaples c.1887 or 1893
Oil on canvas, 65 x 54.5cm (25½ x 21½'')
Original exhibition label verso with artist's name, title and number 26

 

Eugene...

Eugene Laurent Vail (1857-1934)
'Leonie' Etaples c.1887 or 1893
Oil on canvas, 65 x 54.5cm (25½ x 21½'')
Original exhibition label verso with artist's name, title and number 26

 

Eugene Vail was a cosmopolitan artist of American-French background. He was one of a close-knit circle of young painters in the ateliers in Paris and at the artists' colonies of Grez-sur-Loing, Concarneau and Etaples during the 1880s. He was a close friend of Irish artists Frank O'Meara and John Lavery. His pictures enjoyed great success at the Paris Salon and he was awarded the Legion d'Honneur.

Eugene Laurent Vail was born of an American father and French mother in St. Servan, near St. Malo, Brittany, in 1857. He gained and engineering degree at the Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. He worked as a cartographer on a scientific expedition in the West of America. Vail was also a keen sportsman and had an interest in theatre and art.

He began to study at the Art Students' League, New York, in the studios of William Chase and Carol Beckwith. He travelled to Paris c.1882 and became a pupil at the Academie Julian. He became a close friend of John Lavery's there. In March 1882, he entered the Ecole des Beaux Arts, studying in the atelier of Cabanel. He was also a pupil of Collin and Dagnan-Bouveret. Vail first exhibited in the Paris Salon in 1883.

In common with many of his contemporaries, Vail was impatient to paint from nature. Many years later, Lavery acknowledged the influence of his comrade in introducing him to Grez:

"I came to know Gres-sur-Loing through Eugene Vail. We were both at the Academie Julian and we decided to go there to spend the weekend. I remained there for nine months." Hawkins also met Frank O'Meara there.

In 1883, Vail first exhibited at the Paris Salon. In the same year he visited Brittany: Pont-Aven, and Concarneau, in the company of American students Harrison and Simmons. Vail favoured marine and harbour subjects. His best-known Breton painting, 'Le Port de la Peche, Concarneau' (Musée des Beaux Arts, Brest), is a large, low-key study of the harbour and fishing boats. Although sombre in tone, there is a glowing twilight atmosphere, that was, perhaps, to influence Charles Cottet's paintings of Brittany. The picture was exhibited at the Salon in 1884. It was purchased by the French State for the Musée Luxembourg.

In 1887, Vail moved to Etaples, Pas-de-Calais. He spent the winter there, lodging with his friends from Grez, O'Meara and Scottish artist Middleton Jameson. Although less well known than the great art colonies, and less picturesque than Concarneau, Etaples was convenient to reach, being close to Boulogne, and living was cheaper there than at Grez. O'Meara wrote:

"Etaples is a very convenient place - lots of motifs about, plenty of models and studios to be had cheap."

French artist, Cazin, a native of Pas-de-Calais, gained inspiration from the landscape around Etaples. Amongst the artists there in Vail's time were Jameson and O'Meara, French painters Boudin and Tattegrain, the Belgian Faradyn, the Americans Walter Gay and Birge Harrison, Dudley Hardy and a contingent from Cork: William G. Barry, Egerton Coghill and Edith Somerville. Sarah C. Harrison was there in 1890 and E.M. Synge and Frida Moloney in 1909. A large number of British and Australian artists continued to work there up to the First World War.

While O'Meara studied figures at the harbour and Barry and Coghill painted woodland scenes, O'Meara wrote to Lavery that:

"Vail is painting the deck of a fishing boat in a heavy sea, life-size, and I think that it will be very fine."

Vail exhibited at the Salon again in 1886 and in 1888, when he was awarded a 3rd class medal. His work was praised by Albert Wolff, art critic of 'Le Figaro'. Vail served on the international jury of the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. Four of his pictures were also exhibited there and he received a gold medal. Some of Veil's paintings were known for their dark tonality. Like Welden Hawkins, some of his subsequent work became more decorative and Symboliste, showing the influences of Whistler, Japonisme and the Nabis.

Vail may have visited Etaples again c.1893, for his painting 'Soir d'Automne Etaples', which was exhibited at the Salon in 1894.

Veil was awarded the Legion d'Honneur in 1894. Six of his paintings were exhibited at the Salon Nationale in 1899 and his work was praised by Gabriel Mouray in 'The Studio'.

The present portrait shows an attractive young woman, wearing a headscarf or bonnet and she is viewed in profile. On the reverse of the stretcher, the words 'Leonie' and 'Etaples' are written, probably by the artist himself. Leonie evidently is the name of the model. The word 'Etaples' and an art supplier's stamp 'Caron Cousin. Peintre Couleurs et Toiles - Etaples' on the back of the canvas, indicate that the picture was painted in this town, probably c.1887 or c.1893.

Leonie has a fine profile and healthy red cheeks, set against the simple white costume which she is wearing. Vail enjoyed a profile view, as can be seen in 'A Breton Sunday', c.1890 (National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution), which shows a pious woman in scarf, standing in front of a harbour. On the one hand, 'Leonie' has the heroic quality of a peasant woman viewed in profile by Realist painter Jules Beton, for example 'Repose', 1864 (Musée des Beaux Arts, Arras) and 'Jeanne Calvet', 1865 (Francine Clarke Art Institute, Williamstown). But, on the other hand, Leonie is an ordinary country girl, whose rosy colouring reveals her hardworking, healthy life in the open air and by the sea. Her face is well modelled, with the dress indicated in a simple manner, with relaxed, criss-cross brushstrokes. Vail follows the 'Academie Julian' manner, combining a carefully represented face against a more sketchy treatment of clothing. But this relaxed manner also suggests the influence of Impressionist painters, such as Manet and Berthe Morisot.

 

Julian Campbell

 

 

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