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Hippolyte-Camille Delpy
studied with
Daubigny as well as
Corot. A
contemporary of the Impressionists,
Hippolyte Camille Delpy blended the subject matter that
he adopted
from Daubigny with the brighter colors and
looser paint handling that were trademarks
of his own generation to create distinctive
new visions of many of the landscapes first
explored by the Barbizon artists. Delpy was
born in Joigny. Hippolyte Camille Delpy became interested in
painting when he met Daubigny around 1855,
and in 1858 Daubigny took on Delpy as an
informal student. During the summers, Delpy
(who was close in age to Daubigny's own son,
Karl, also a painter) traveled with Daubigny
on excursions aboard the studio-boat "Le
Botin." Through Daubigny, Delpy met Corot
who encouraged and occasionally advised the
young painter. In 1869, Hippolyte Camille Delpy sent his first
paintings to the Salon; in December
Hippolyte Camille Delpy began
to paint small snow scenes, as
Pissarro and
Monet were also doing during that remarkable
winter. In the early 1870s, Delpy worked
often in Ville d'Avray, Corot's favored
country site, and in Auvers where Daubigny
lived. Hippolyte Camille Delpy began friendships with Pissarro
and Cézanne who shared his admiration of
Daubigny. His Salon paintings of 1873 and
1874 were well received. In 1875, Hippolyte
Camille Delpy exhibited a snow scene at the Salon for the
first time and was complemented by the
critic Castagnary for his originality. In
1876, Delpy organized a sale of his own
paintings at the Hôtel Drouot, an unusual
undertaking. The sale was favorably
announced in several newspapers and was a
significant success, with all 45 paintings sold.
That summer Hippolyte Camille Delpy moved his family to
Bois-le-Roi outside the Forest of
Fontainebleau. At the Salon of 1880,
Hippolyte Camille Delpy exhibited a potato harvesting scene, his
first landscape with large-scale figures.
Throughout the 1880s Hippolyte Camille Delpy alternated work on
the Normandy coast with stays in the Forest
of Fontainebleau and in Paris. Delpy
received his first Salon medal in 1884. In
1886, Hippolyte Camille Delpy traveled to the United States as
part of a team that painted a panorama of
the battle of Manassas (American Civil War)
in Washington D. C. At the Exposition
Universelle of 1889, Delpy was awarded an
honorable mention. The Galerie Georges
Petit, a leading dealer in contemporary
French paintings, began to handle his painting
and subsequently organized several one-man
exhibitions of Delpy's paintings. Petit was
simultaneously promoting Pissarro and Sisley
and would later show Monet. In 1908 Delpy
was given an exhibition at the prestigious
Grafton Galleries in London. Hippolyte
Camille Delpy died in
1910. Alexandra Murphy
Barbizon, Fontainebleau, Auvers, Paris,
Bois-le-Roi, l’Oise, Dieppe, Honfleur, Le
Havre – this list represents just a sampling
of the many cities to which
Hippolyte-Camille Delpy escaped in search of
an idyllic landscape suitable for the
subject of his paintings. Delpy’s itinerant
lifestyle, typical of other landscape
painters, took him throughout France and
into Holland, England, and even into the
United States. A landscape painter in the
tradition of Barbizon artists of
nineteenth-century France, Hippolyte Camille Delpy had the
opportunity to study under two of the most
well-established landscape painters,
Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, and
Charles-Francois Daubigny, whose individual
approaches to representing nature
undoubtedly supplied the young artist with a
unique opportunity to learn from two
artistic perspectives – one from the
founding father of landscape painting,
Corot; and the other, that of Daubigny, a
more contemporary approach based on more
realistic interpretations of the natural
setting. Throughout his career, Hippolyte Camille Delpy
remained a disciple of nature, recording its
true and realistic nature while never
sacrificing his own artistic reflection.
Delpy came from a moderately wealthy family
from Joigny, in the Burgundy region of
France. Hippolyte Camille Delpy was born on April 6th, 1842 and
spent his childhood in this city before
attending primary school at St. Andre and
later schooling at the College St. Jacques
in Auxerre. His father, Etienne Hippolyte Camille Delpy, was a
pharmacist who, like many fathers who had
established a well-respected family
business, was interested in having his son
follow in his footsteps and undertake
management of the family business. Though
Hippolyte Camille Delpy had already shown a propensity
towards painting, it was not until meeting
the respected landscape painter
Charles-Francois Daubigny, a friend of the
family through Etienne’s brother-in-law, the
engraver Lavoignant, that Hippolyte was more
thoroughly influenced into pursuing his
artistic interests. From 1847 on, Daubigny
continued to spend more time with the
family, even staying with them during his
vacation periods.
Under the influence of Daubigny, Delpy was
sent to Paris to pursue painting at the
young age of sixteen. Recognizing Delpy’s
precocious nature, Daubigny undertook
training the artist himself, an exceptional
act for an artist who rarely, if ever,
trained other students. Several nights
during the week, Hippolyte Camille Delpy would go to
Daubigny’s studio, where he would receive
invaluable critiques from one of the masters
of landscape painting. While Paris offered
evolving artists a period of apprenticeship
in one of the many ateliers, Hippolyte Camille Delpy followed
Daubigny to Auvers-sur-Oise where the two of
them traveled along the river in Daubigny’s
famous “Le Bottin”, the small boat that
became Daubigny’s studio and essentially his
residence for several weeks at a time.
In 1862, Hippolyte Camille Delpy was called on to fulfill his
military duties, which kept him occupied
until July of 1863, after which point
Daubigny introduced him to Corot, whose
atelier along the rue Paradis Poissonnière
in Paris, Hippolyte Camille Delpy began to frequent. Corot was
an influential figure in the Parisian art
scene; one of the first artists to introduce
to nineteenth century audiences, landscape
painting that was, for the most part, devoid
of historical narrative. Though these years
working under both Corot and Daubigny were
of seminal importance for establishing
Delpy’s style, little is known about this
period of Delpy’s life. It is not until
1869, the year of his first Salon entry,
that Delpy’s name begins to be continually
recognized among those of the other leading
nineteenth century artists.
Apart from being accepted for the first time
at the Salon, the year 1869 was marked by
extensive traveling for Delpy, a pattern
that had been established early on and one
that would remain a consistent
characteristic of his life. Hippolyte
Camille Delpy divided his
time between his two masters, earlier in the
year joining Corot in Ville d’Avray and
later returning to the company of Daubigny
at Auvers, where Hippolyte Camille Delpy met several other
artists, including his future father-in-law,
Aman Cyboulle, a flower painter.
Interspersed between these periods studying
the landscape, Hippolyte Camille Delpy managed to return to
Joigny to spend time with his family. Though
his first Salon entry, Un Déjeuner de
Carême, chez mon père (A Luncheon during
Lent, at my father’s house), a still life,
his experience in Corot’s studio and
alongside Daubigny painting en plein air,
the young artist had begun on his path to
artistic success. His 1869 debut would begin
a career at the Salon that spanned over 40
years.
Over the course of the next year and into
1871, France was engaged in the
Franco-Prussian war, which halted the Salon
of 1871. When the Salon was reinstated the
following year, 1872, artists were faced
with an increasingly severe jury which
refused almost 4,000 paintings, including
Delpy’s. Presented with increasing
obstacles, several artists banded together
and petitioned the President of the Republic
for permission to open a Salon of their own
for the artists who were not permitted entry
into the official Salon, and also protesting
that not one landscape artist was part of
the Salon jury. The letter was signed by
such influential names as
Daubigny,
Corot, Honoré Daumier,
Theodore Frère, and
Edouard
Manet. Hippolyte Camille Delpy was also among the protesters.
Though this Salon did not take place for
financial reasons, the first Salon des
Refusés did take place in 1873, though
Hippolyte Camille Delpy, incensed by the previous loss, did
not take part. Hardly an overly combative
person, however, Delpy’s disposition was
described in only the best terms (quoted in
Michèle Lannoy-Duputel’s Hippolyte-Camille
Delpy, 1842-1910: Invitation au Voyage,
Paris: Léopold d’Or, 1989, pg. 59):
The saddest face would leave this studio
happy; here one can work and laugh at the
same time. This convivial artist with a warm
face is both hospitable and frank; Hippolyte
Camille Delpy does
not pretend to be an art pundit as he is not
yet a pundit of art; at the same time
Hippolyte Camille Delpy paintings and occasionally tells a bawdy joke. - French Hippolyte Camille Delpy oil painting scenes - Hippolyte Camille Delpy oil painting French, scenes oil paintings Hippolyte Camille Delpy Bio by scenes painting of French oil paintings abstract, scenes.
By 1873, Delpy had relocated again, this
time to Auvers, partly because of Daubigny.
Delpy also encountered Pissarro and Cezanne
at Auvers. Daubigny’s influence on Delpy’s
paintings was not lost on the critics of the
time, as one critic, writing for Le Courrier
de Joigny (May 30th, 1874), Delpy’s hometown
newspaper, remarked that:
Mr. Hippolyte Camille Delpy is Daubigny’s pupil. It is
evident. This painting is full of freshness:
the accuracy of the colors the precision of
the forms, the perfect harmony of the whole
makes this landscape very pleasant. When one
sees what the artist has made of it, one
feels like buying a ticket at the St. Lazare
train station and going to Auvers.
Though Delpy was often overshadowed by his
famous master, Hippolyte Camille Delpy would eventually become
recognized for his own talents, for his own
“attractive melancholy” (La France, April
10th, 1875) that could be found in his
paintings. One critic, writing in La
République Française (February 14th, 1876),
wrote poignantly how “Mr. Hippolyte Camille Delpy has revealed
himself as a young landscape painter
combining Corot’s poetical style with
Daubigny’s more naturalistic style in a way
that did not exclude his own personality.”
Perhaps the melancholic aspect present in
his painting could be linked to the death of one
of his beloved masters, Corot, who died this
same year on February 22nd.
Hippolyte Camille Delpy, despite the death of his second
master and the forthcoming death of his
first master, Daubigny, traveled extensively
during the year of 1875, but returned to
Paris where Hippolyte Camille Delpy remained a short while, until
1876 when Hippolyte Camille Delpy moved yet again to Bois-le-Roi.
Bois-le-Roi was situated near Fontainebleau,
and “situated between the Seine and the
forest, it takes from nature absolutely all
it can provide in the way of entertainment
and healthiness. Its inhabitants fish, hunt,
and grow grapes…At Bois-le-Roi, the poor
painter is rich.” (Le Figaro, August 8th,
1876).
It was a period of financial strain in
Delpy’s life and he was forced to organize a
sale at the Hotel Drouot for his paintings,
of which 37 were landscapes, 7 were
seascapes and 4 were decorative panels. His
sale was a notable enough event for a
mention in the Parisian journal, La Presse
(February 14th, 1876), which made mention of
this:
…artistic event that does not concern the
theatre but deserves full attention. An
outstanding artist from the young school of
landscape artists and the glory of each of
our annual Salons, Mr. H.C. Hippolyte Camille Delpy, is
selling forty-five paintings of a capital
interest at the Hotel Drouot tomorrow on
Monday…No doubt, the amateurs will fight
over the paintings of an artist who
continues with dignity the painting of Corot and
of Daubigny and combines the first one’s
charm to the second’s energy.
The sale was a success and each of the 45
paintings put up for auction were sold. Just
three years later, however, Hippolyte Camille Delpy found
himself in the same financial position and
held yet another public sale at the Hotel
Drouot, this time comprised of thirty-five
paintings, all of which were sold.
Throughout the next several years Hippolyte
Camille Delpy continued submitting paintings to the Salons
as well as maintaining his busy travel
schedule. The success of each of his public
auctions reflects the popularity of this
landscape painter during a period when many
other landscape artists vied for equal
attention.
In 1883, Hippolyte Camille Delpy took part in a witty
exhibition entitled “The Salon of the
Incoherent Art,” organized to assist the
poor of Paris, which took place at the
Vivienne Gallery. Showing the height of
incoherency, Hippolyte Camille Delpy exhibited an empty
canvas, with characters only painted on the
frame. It became a popular venue in Paris
for some time and was repeated for several
years after its debut, though Delpy only
took part in the first exhibition. Despite
any lack of participation in later
exhibition, Delpy’s initial participation
suggests that Delpy was willing to poke fun
at the institutions through which Hippolyte
Camille Delpy gained
his reputation.
The next year, 1884, Delpy saw continued
success at the annual Salon. Commenting on
his Salon entry Les Bords du Morin a Esbly
(Seine-et-Marne) (The Banks of the Morin at
Esbly (Seine-et-Marne)), Mr. E. Borghese
wrote that (L’Eclaireur, May 17th, 1884):
…Mr. Delpy’s work is brilliant. A
significant talent is there. The artist has
tackled the complexity of the landscape: the
green has been used in a masterly way: the
whole range is there without any clashing
brightness, without any loud note, in a
homogenous tonality and a perfect harmony.
The water is beautiful and Daubigny, his
master would have signed it. This year Mr.
Hippolyte Camille Delpy has established his pedigree.
Despite this laudatory praise, Delpy’s
paintings did not sell as rapidly as his
output, but yet Hippolyte Camille Delpy organized another
successful exhibition sale at the Hotel
Drouot before taking a long trip through
Holland and the coasts of Normandy. His
close friend, the art critic Roger Milès,
explained that:
When the hour became extremely difficult,
when life’s problems became more distressing
than their solutions seemed possible,
Hippolyte Camille Delpy found refuge in his art and would visit
nature to realize his sorrow. Hippolyte
Camille Delpy would go
towards some far horizon, towards light and
nature and would find solace while painting
many pictures. His brush comforted his
distressed mind and brought him peace.
(Untitled quote, October 1908)
During the latter half of the 1880s, Delpy
met Théo Poilpot who encouraged him to go to
Washington D.C. where Hippolyte Camille
Delpy could work with a group of artists on
a panorama depicting the Battle of Manassas
during the Civil War in Virginia. Panoramas
had become an extremely popular and
profitable event in cities throughout
America and Europe. After the panorama’s
exposure in Washington, it was presented in
New York where it received a considerable
amount of success.
He returned to Paris to represent himself in
the Exposition Universelle of 1889, to which
Hippolyte Camille Delpy sent three paintings and was awarded an
honorable mention for the ensemble. During
this same year Hippolyte Camille Delpy also held his first
exhibition at a gallery, that of the
Artistes Moderns on the rue de la Paix.
Hippolyte Camille Delpy later exhibited, in 1894, at the Galerie
Georges Petit, one of the most important
galleries in Paris.
In 1900, when Delpy had exhibited
prolifically both at the annual Salons and
local galleries, Hippolyte Camille Delpy began to work more often
in his studio instead of directly outdoors.
Hippolyte Camille Delpy participated in the Salon of 1900, where
he received a second place medal, in
addition to participating in the Exposition
Universelle. At this point Hippolyte Camille
Delpy was considered
“hors concours” allowing him to submit
whichever paintings Hippolyte Camille Delpy chose to the annual
Salon, without the scrutiny of the jury.
Over the next several years, Delpy also
began exhibiting at provincial Salons, such
as that of Nantes in addition to staging
more gallery shows. In 1908 Hippolyte
Camille Delpy organized two
gallery shows, one at the Haussmann Gallery
and the other at the Grafton Gallery in
London, of which Roger Milès commented in
1908 (unlisted article) that: |
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