Pierre Carrier-Belleuse (1851-1931) Portrait of Vedette dated 1921

Pierre Carrier-Belleuse (Paris, 1851-1931).
“Vedette portrait” pastel on canvas signed upper right and dated 1921 in its original gilded wood frame.

Measures
Pastel cm 71 x 58.5
Frame cm 80 x 68

Pierre Gérard Albert Carrier de Belleuse, known as Pierre Carrier-Belleuse, born January 28, 1851 in the 8th arrondissement of Paris (former) and died in the 16th arrondissement of Paris on December 31, 1932, is a French painter.

He is the author of numerous portraits of Opera dancers. We also owe him three panoramas.

Pierre Carrier-Belleuse is the son of the sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse and Louise Anne Adnot. First a student of his father, then of Alexandre Cabanel at the École des beaux-arts in Paris, he exhibited for the first time at the Salon of 1875. He received an honorable mention there in 1887. Like his father, his work focuses mainly on women. His drawings of dancers were frequently reproduced in Le Figaro Illustrated.

He participated in the Universal Exhibition of 1889 and won a silver medal which put him out of competition. He joined the Société nationale des beaux-arts in 1890 and was appointed member in 1893. Every year he exhibited pastels there which made him a success. In 1895, he was named president of the International Society of Painting and Sculpture.

From 1885, he worked almost exclusively in pastels. That same year, he married Thérèse Duhamel-Surville, great-niece of Honoré de Balzac. From this marriage a daughter was born, Pierrette.

He taught at the Académie Julian in Paris in the 1890s.

Pierre Carrier-Belleuse painted a lot on the Opal Coast. He owned a villa on the top of a cliff in Wissant. The surrounding dunes provided the setting for several of his works. He participated in the Wissant school, founded by his friends the painters Adrien Demont and Virginie Demont-Breton.

From 1885 to 1932, he lived at 31, boulevard Berthier in the 17th arrondissement of Paris, where a commemorative plaque pays tribute to him. He is buried in the Carnot cemetery in Suresnes, in the same grave as the writer Laure Surville, grandmother of the painter’s wife.