Paul-Émile Boutigny

Painter (1853–1929)

Paul-Émile Boutigny (1853–1929) was a French academic painter and student of Alexandre Cabanel at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, which he joined after the War of 1870. A regular exhibitor at the Salon des Artistes Français from the early 1880s, he first rose to prominence through his large-scale military and historical compositions depicting episodes of the Revolution and the Empire, rendered with an acute sense of movement and detail. He was appointed Chevalier of the Légion d’honneur in 1898. A sought-after illustrator, he also lent his talent to editions of works by Maupassant and Zola, and founded the revue Cocorico, one of the epicenters of Art Nouveau in Paris. In the later part of his career, Boutigny turned toward 18th-century-inspired genre scenes in the vein of Watteau and Fragonard. Remaining faithful to an elegant, narrative aesthetic distinct from the avant-garde movements, he gained greater freedom of brushwork in his works of the 1910s and 1920s, which became increasingly luminous and vibrant.