Nicolas Sicard

Biography of Nicolas Sicard ( 1846-1920 )

Born in Lyon on January 9, 1846, and died in 1920, Nicolas Sicard was the son of the painter Apollinaire Sicard, a specialist in the flower paintings of the Lyon school. Showing real artistic talent from an early age, young Nicolas, after a classical secondary education, undertook an artistic training and became a pupil of Victor Vibert and Jean-Baptiste Danquin at the Lyon School of Fine Arts.

He made his debut at the Paris Salon in 1869 and became a member of the Salon des Artistes Français in 1883. He was awarded a bronze medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. In 1891, he received an honorable mention at the Salon des Artistes Français.

A prolific painter, he produced large-scale works, often for official commissions, such as the paintings decorating the Préfecture du Rhône in Lyon, where a street still bears his name. A leading figure in Lyon painting, he was a member of the Académie des Sciences, des Belles-Lettres et Arts from 1886, vice-chairman of the board of directors of Lyon's museums, professor and then director of the École des Beaux-arts de Lyon from 1894 to 1918. He was awarded the Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur in 1900.

A watercolorist and Orientalist, he also traveled to the Middle East, where he painted street scenes, markets and hunting scenes with riders and horses, treated with a remarkable sense of movement. In both his historical paintings of the 1870 war and his Orientalist pictures, the horse plays a central role.