Louis Buvelot
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Abram Louis Buvelot (March 3, 1814 - 30 May 1888) was a Swiss-born painter who emigrated to Australia.
His father, François Simeon Buvelot, was a postal official who had married Jeanne Louise Heizer, a school teacher. Louis Buvelot—he disliked his first name and never used it—worked under Arland at Lausanne, and continued his studies at Paris with Camille Flers, a well-known landscape painter of the day. After a few months in Paris he migrated to Bahia in Brazil where he worked on his uncle's plantation. Four years later he removed to Rio de Janeiro and attracted the notice of the emperor Don Pedro II, who bought some of his pictures and decorated him with the order of the rose. Buvelot returned to Switzerland in 1852 and in 1856 was awarded a silver medal for a picture exhibited at Berne, but having lived in a warm country, he found the cold of Switzerland trying to his health and sailed for Melbourne in 1865.
For a few months he was in business as a photographer in Bourke Street but soon resumed his painting. He lived for some years in Latrobe Street East, and then removed to George Street, Fitzroy. His wife helped by teaching French, and presently he began to find buyers for his pictures, of whom James Smith was one of the earliest. In 1869 the trustees of the national gallery of Victoria bought two of his pictures, and in 1870 paid £131 for the Waterpool at Coleraine. In 1873, 1880 and 1884 he was awarded gold medals at exhibitions held in Melbourne, and he also received a silver medal at the Philadelphia exhibition of 1876. His reputation became established, his only interest was his work, and he went on steadily painting until his death on 30 May 1888. He was married twice, (1) to Marie Félicité Lalloutte, (2) to Julie Beguin. His widow, also an artist, survived him for many years. There were no children. In July 1888 a memorial exhibition of his work was held at the national gallery, Melbourne, and one of the galleries in that building was subsequently named after him.
Buvelot was a simple, kindly, sincere man who walked about "in the clothes of a peasant with the air of a king". In his old age he sometimes reminded people of the well-known portrait of Leonardo da Vinci. He would go into the country and steep himself in the landscape he intended painting, making pencil and water-colour sketches until he had complete possession of it. His drawing and composition were both good, and he was easily the best painter of his time in Victoria. He is represented in the galleries at Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Perth and Castlemaine, and his bust by Bertram Mackennal and a portrait in oils by J. C. Waite are also in the Melbourne gallery.
He is best known for his great contribution to Australian art after he emigrated there in 1865. His works, mostly oil landscapes, are quite well regarded, but perhaps his impact was even greater as a tutor of several members of the Heidelberg School. His enthusiasm for plein air painting (that is, painting directly in the open air) was a key characteristic of those artists' work.
Buvelot's Australian work hangs in all the major Australian galleries, as well as the Tate Gallery in London.
[edit] Reference
- Serle, Percival (1949). “Buvelot, Abram Loius”, Dictionary of Australian Biography. Sydney: Angus and Robertson.
[edit] See also
- This article incorporates text from the public domain 1949 edition of Dictionary of Australian Biography from
Project Gutenberg of Australia, which is in the public domain in Australia and the United States of America.
