Paysage au cyprès by Henri Beau

Henri Beau belongs to the generation of Quebec painters who went to Paris in the 1880s to pursue their artistic training. After studying at the École des Beaux-Arts and attending private academies in the capital, the native Montrealer pursued a career in France. Beau is recognized for his historical paintings and stood out in Parisian salons with impressionist landscapes reminiscent of Monet’s technique. Alongside his work as an illustrator for the Public Archives of Canada in Paris (1921-1938), Beau produced portraits, landscapes, still lifes and genre scenes. The retrospective exhibition that the Musée du Québec (today the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec) organized in 1987 highlighted his intimate paintings, which represent the interior of his studio apartment on l’Allée Maintenon, located in a dead end of the rue de Vaugirard, in Paris. In addition, the French state acquired one of these intimate scenes in 1939, which is now in the collection of the Musée de Nevers.