The French painter, Adrien Henri Tanoux, left an indelible mark on the history of Orientalist Art, and yet today he remains a relatively little known artist. He has no page on wiki (yet), and biographical information concerning his life is scant. He was born October 10, 1865 in Marseille. He studied at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he was a student of Leon Bonnat. To learn more about Tanoux you need to look at his teacher Leon Bonnat
"Bonnat won a medal of honor in Paris in 1869, going on to become one of the leading artists of his day. He went on to win the Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur and became a professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts in 1882. Bonnat "was a liberal teacher who stressed simplicity in art above high academic finish, as well as overall effect rather than detail," explains Julius Kaplan. Bonnat's emphasis on overall effect on the one hand, and rigorous drawing on the other, put him in a middle position with respect to the Impressionists and academic painters like his friend Jean-Léon Gérôme." Tanoux appears to have been very successful with his art after studying with Bonnat. "He exhibited his works at the Salon of French Artists in Paris, where he became Associate in 1905, and received numerous awards: honorable mention at the Exposition Universelle of 1889, a third class medal and a second class medal respectively in 1894 and 1895, when he is also awarded a travel scholarship." In researching these facts I discovered by good fortune a photograph of the 1895 painting. |
I have to remind the reader that this is not a photograph of a street scene in Paris 1895, but a photograph of Tanoux's painting and you can see his signature in the lower right corner, click on the image to see an enlargement. Tanoux was about 30 years old and a very talented artist as this reproduction proves, for which he was rewarded with a medal and travel scholarship, indicating that everything about this painting was much appreciated at the time. |