Louis Welden Hawkins 

Biography of Louis Welden Hawkins  ( 1849-1910 )

The son of an English naval officer and an Austrian baroness, Louis Welden Hawkins spent his childhood in England where his family intended him to pursue a military career. He was sent to the Royal Navy Academy, which he left in 1870 to become an artist. He then moved to Paris, enrolled at the Académie Julian where he met many Anglo-American artists.
He was a pupil of Jules Bastien-Lepage, who influenced his first works, of William Bouguereau and Jules Lefebvre. Then in 1876, at the École des Beaux-Arts, Louis Welden Hawkins was a student of Gustave Boulanger.

His academic painting, representing naturalistic and rural scenes where women already had an important place, was appreciated. The artist made a successful debut at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1881, to which he remained faithful for ten years. His first painting exhibited, entitled The Orphans, was bought by the State.

At the end of the 1880s, although he was unable to join his studio and become his pupil, Louis Welden Hawkins adopted the monumental style of Puvis de Chavannes whom he admired. He came into contact with a number of writers and poets associated with the nascent Symbolist movement, notably Paul Adam, Stéphane Mallarmé, Jean Lorrain and the dandy-poet-socialite Robert de Montesquiou. He also established relationships with personalities from the political and trade union world, such as the radical-socialist deputy Camille Pelletan and the libertarian and feminist journalist Séverine, whose portrait he painted.

From 1894 onwards, Louis Welden Hawkins, who had just become a French citizen, was invited to exhibit at the Salon de la Rose-Croix, the Libre Esthétique in Brussels and the Salon de la Société nationale des Beaux-Arts. His work took the form of refined symbolism, reflecting the artist's interest in the Pre-Raphaelites and the esoteric concerns of his friendly circle.

In 1905 he left Paris for Brittany and painted landscapes there, adopting a free flowing style and light colors very different from those he had been using. A number of these were exhibited at the 1910 Paris Salon, the last exhibition Louis Welden Hawkins attended before his death that year.