Pierre Carrier-Belleuse (French painter) 1851 - 1933
Son of the renowned sculptor Albert-Ernest Carrier-Belleuse, Louis-Robert Carrier-Belleuse was a sculptor and painter who began his studies with his father. He later continued with Alexandre Cabanel and Gustave Boulanger at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Beginning his public painting career at the Salon of 1870, Louis focused his attention on Parisian street scenes. Still, while many painters of Parisian life preferred to depict the bustling avenues, Louis Carrier-Belleuse turned his attention toward the people of the city. He painted the merchants, businessmen, and bourgeois strollers along the new avenues with such acuity that the critic Octave Mirbeau described him as an artist with the “eye of a photographer.” After 1889 Louis switched his focus to sculpture, exhibiting numerous busts. Well respected in this endeavor, he became artistic director of the Faience atelier at Clichy-le-Roi where he designed modelos for ceramic production, and received commissions to sculpt the tomb of President Barrias of Guatemala and the National Monument of Costa Rica. He was appointed a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor and received a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889.
