Georges De Feure

Biography of Georges De Feure ( 1868-1903 )

Of his real name Joseph Van Sluyters, Georges de Feure is a French artist of Dutch descent. He is born in Paris in 1868, but his family has to emigrate in 1870 because of the French-Prussian war. On returning to Paris in 1889, he settles down in Montmartre and integrates the " Parisian Bohemia ". In particular, he makes friends with the composers Eric Satie, Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

His pictorial work is very inspired by the poems of Baudelaire and Georges Rodenbach's novels. In the 1890s, the artist Puvis de Chavanne classifies him among the most important painters of the symbolist movement in France.
His work is above all characterized by representations of the Femme fatale: evanescent silhouette, translucent complexion, long rippling hair in which the men are captured, a theme which we find as well in the entire works of the style 'Art nouveau' and in the painters Pre-Raphaelites in England.

In 1892, Georges de Feure participates in the 1st Salon de la Rose-Croix, held under the aegis of Rose Péladan, then second time en 1894 (with l’Abîme). He design illustrations for the press and posters for art events. Georges de Feure exposes regularly to the Salon of the National Society of the Fine Arts, for exemple, in 1895, he exposes five works among which " Mélancolie, La voix du Mal ", and in 1896 « La Fée Caprice » a project for a tapestry.

Georges de Feure acquires very fast a big fame as symbolist painter and his experience as a designer (posters, ceramics, numerous pieces of furniture, fans, tapestries, restaurant decorations, etc.) push the art dealer Siegfried Bing to ask him to realize the facade of the Art Nouveau house in the Exposition Universelle in 1900, and the conception of two interiors too. His work will be praised by the criticism who appreciates the delicacy and the entire feminine grace, seeing there the quintessence of the french art.

In 1903, an important retrospective of his works takes place in Paris, always in the Gallery Bing: 155 paintings, watercolors and lithographies are next to a big variety of decorative objects. This exhibition will travel then in Hamburg and The Hague. A protean artist, Georges de Feure was also co-director of the art Galerie Boissy d'Anglois in Paris and even co-founded an aeronautical construction company. In 1909, he presented his second plane in the Bon Marché department store.

During the first decades of the XXth century, Georges de Feure continues to realize ornamental groups while evolving naturally towards the Art deco. Madeleine Vionnet entrusts him with the decoration of her Maison de Couture. He is also interested in the creation of costumes and sets for theatre.