Léon Germain Pelouse

Léon Germain Pelouse (1 October 1838 – 31 July 1891) was a self-taught French painter born in Pierrelaye (Val-d'Oise, France).[1] At sixteen, he began working as a traveling salesman. He began painting when he was twenty, as he was serving in the French army as a conscript.[2] His professional painting career began at twenty-seven, with the exhibition of his Les Environs de Précy (Near Précy) at the Salon de Paris of 1865.[3] Despite severe criticism, he continued painting. He moved to Brittany, and there, inspired by nature around Pont-Aven and Rochefort-en-Terre, Pelouse painted landscapes which were exhibited at the Salon de Paris in the following years. He received his first medal in 1873 for Vallée de Cernay (Cernay Valley).[4] He finally gained success and critical approval. The French government bought many of his works which are now in the holdings of museums including the Musée d'Orsay,[5] the Musée Malraux, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes.[6]

Raingo-Pelouse family tree

Léon Germain Pelouse in his atelier, painted by Émile-Louis Foubert in 1891, the year Pelouse died.

By his adoption of his wife's son, Lucien Jean Léon Raingo-Pelouse, he was the grandfather of the French artist Germain Raingo-Pelouse (1893-1963; their lifespans did not overlap).

Pelouse and his friends and students who socialized and painted together in the region have become known as the École de Cernay.

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  Les Premieres Feuilles
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  Grandcamp at low tide, 1884
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  Forest at dusk, 1885