Honoré Daumier

1808 - 1879

French graphic artist, painter and sculptor. He studied at the Academie Suisse where he learned the process of lithography and lithographs together with political and later social caricature in the Charivari magazine, poking fun at the French petty bourgeoisie, allowed him to earn a living. His interests nevertheless also embraced sculpture and painting, himself creating small figurative sculptures, but from the mid-1940’s he concentrated solely on painting. The most baroque artist among the French realists of the 19th century, he had a perfect sense of plasticity, sharp contrasts of light and dark, dramatic action and used a dynamic, radically divided handwriting reminiscent of Tintoretto. For years his qualities as a painter remained unrecognised until his last exhibition a year before his death which contributed to the recognition of Daumier’s work and appreciation of its quality.