A Frenchman by birth, Alphonse Legros is primarily remembered today not merely as a talented artist but for his major contributions to art education in Britain, especially the time he spent at the Slade where he influenced a generation of artists. He taught not only draughtsmanship, but also painting, printmaking, and sculpture. Legros introduced French academic ideas into the Slade curriculum, especially the mastery of rapid oil sketching, memory training, and rigorous figure draughtsmanship. Legros also added an etching class and instituted competitions, prizes, and travel scholarships so students could study first hand the works of the Old Masters he so admired.
He was instrumental in the revival of the art medal in Britain in the late nineteenth century, a technique that he taught himself based upon the Italian Renaissance style of portrait medallion by artists such as Antonio Pisano [Pisanello]. He also promoted in England the work of avant-garde French artists such as his colleagues Degas and Rodin. In his own work Legros was frequently criticised for his uncompromising naturalism and his choice of subject matter.
Alphonse Legros was born on May 8, 1837 in Dijon in France, the second son of an accountant Lucien Auguste Legros and his wife Anne Victoire. Alphonse attended the Ecole des Beaux-Arts at Dijon from an early age intending to qualify for an artistic trade. In 1850 he was apprenticed to Maître Nicolardo, a house decorator and a painter of images. In 1851 Legros left for Paris but stayed for six months in Lyon where he was employed in the studio of artist and decorator Jean-Baptiste Beuchot, who was painting the Chapel of Cardinal Bonald in the Cathedral. Legros worked as a mural painter doing ornamental work in fresco in the chapel. Once he arrived in Paris Legros initially studied with Charles-Antoine Cambon, a theatre decorator, which improved the decorative quality of his work.
By 1853 he was attending the Petite École de Dessin [École Royale et Spéciale de Dessin et de Mathématique], studying under the influential teacher Lecoq de Boisbaudran, where his fellow students included Auguste Rodin, Jules Dalou, and Henri Fantin-Latour. Legros also studied sculpture there under Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux. Legros also met other progressive French artists such as Manet, Degas, Courbet, Cazin, and Lhermitte. Legros spent whole days drawing in the Louvre after the Old Masters. In 1855 Legros began attending the evening classes of the École des Beaux Arts, attending irregularly until 1857. In 1857 he submitted two portraits to the Paris Salon, one of which was rejected but was later included in the protest exhibition organized by the realist painter François Bonvin. The critic Champfleury [Jules François Felix Fleury-Husson] admired Legros’s portrait at the Salon and persuaded him to join the so-called “Realists,” a group of painters centered around Gustave Courbet.
In 1858 Legros formed a friendship with James McNeill Whistler and in 1859, together with Henri Fantin-Latour, they formed the Société des Trois. Both Whistler and Legros were portrayed in Fantin’s well-known group portrait entitled Hommage à Delacroix. In 1859 Legros exhibited L’ Angelus at the Salon, the first of his peaceful sombre church interiors for which he would become well known. In 1860 he accompanied Whistler and made his first trip to London. In 1863 Legros participated with Whistler in the Salon des Refusés. Because of a lack of recognition in France, combined with severe financial difficulties, Legros moved to England that same year at the suggestion of Whistler.
He married Frances Rosetta Hodgson in 1864. Although Legros never mastered the English language, he did become a naturalized British citizen in 1881. Initially through Whistler he was introduced to a number of fellow artists and to patrons and was met with great kindness by artists such as Dante Gabriel Rossetti, G. F. Watts, and Frederic Leighton. Legros was already familiar with the so-called “Paris Gang’, the artists who had trained in Gleyre’s studio in the late 1850s including Thomas Armstrong, Edward Poynter, Val Prinsep, and George Du Maurier. In the beginning Legros lived primarily by his etching and teaching. Legros had made his first etchings in around 1857-58. In the winter of 1860-61 he had taught Edwin Edwards the rudiments of etching and later gave drawing lessons to students such as George Howard, Maria Zambaco, and the surgeon Sir Henry Thompson.
In 1864 Legros exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy and continued to exhibit there until 1882. By 1869 he was living at Victoria Grove-Villas in Bayswater. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 his home became a refuge for French artists in exile like Bonvin, Daubigny, and Gérôme. In 1871, on the recommendation of Edward Poynter, G. F. Watts, and D. G. Rossetti, Legros was appointed teacher of etching at the National Art Training Schools in South Kensington. In 1875 he replaced Poynter as the Professor of Fine Art at the Slade School of University College London. He was to remain at the Slade for the next seventeen years, retiring in 1892. He moved to 57 Brook Green in Hammersmith in 1875 and to 18 St. Martin’s Place, near to the National Gallery, in 1882.
Legros declined an invitation to exhibit at the first group Impressionist exhibition in Paris in 1874 but did contribute to their second exhibition in 1876, likely at the invitation of his friend Degas. Legros was member of the ‘Société des Aquafortistes’ from 1862-67. He exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery and later at the New Gallery. He was elected a fellow of the Society of Painter-Etchers in July 1880, but resigned in 1885. He was re-elected April 1895 and made an honorary fellow in December 1910. He was elected an honorary fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy in March 1911. He was also a member of the International Society of Sculptors Painters and Engravers and of the Society of Twelve [The Society of Twelve Painter Engravers].
In 1897, at the instance of Sandford Arthur Strong, Legros was commissioned by the Duke of Portland to design fountains for the gardens of his country house at Welbeck. These were carried out with the help of his friend and fellow sculptor Professor Édouard Lantéri. On the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria, Legros undertook the decoration for the top of the Bank of England. Legros was president of the committee of the Alfred Stevens Memorial. Stevens was an artist whom Legros had greatly admired and the memorial was finally presented to the Tate Gallery on November 15, 1911. Legros died at Watford in Hertfordshire on December 8, 1911 and was buried at Hammersmith cemetery.
Bibliography
Bénédite, Léonce. “Alphonse Legros, Painter and Sculptor.” The Studio XXIX (June 1903), 3-22.
Holroyd, Charles. “Alphonse Legros.” Dictionary of National Biography, 2nd supplement. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1912, 444-47.
Monkhouse, Cosmo. “Professor Legros.” The Magazine of Art V (1882): 327-34.
Prettejohn, Elizabeth. “The Scandal of M. Alphonse Legros.” Art History XLIV (January 16, 2021): 78-107.
Wilcox, Timothy. Alphonse Legros, 1837-1911. Catalogue de l'exposition présentée au Musée des beaux-arts de Dijon, du 12 Décembre 1987 au 15 Février 1988.
Created 13 November 2022