“clouds and sky” landscape paintings by French artist Eugène Boudin at the Haapsalu Library

The Haapsalu Library presents an exhibition of art replicas of “clouds and sky” landscape paintings by French artist Eugène Boudin. The original paintings are displayed at the MuMa gallery (short for André Malraux Modern Art Museum) and the art replica exhibition at the Haapsalu Library was organised as part of its traditional family event, with this year’s theme being “Under the clouds”.

About the artist:

Eugène Boudin was born in 1824 in Honfleur, Normandy. At age 24 he started a picture framing and paper business which became popular among local writers and artists who inspired him into drawing and painting. A fews years later he decided to fully dedicate himself to painting. He made a living painting nature mortes, casual scenes and portraits of the local aristocracy.

Eugène finally found his true calling while travelling in 1848, when he started painting seaside vistas, boats and harbours. His first art exhibition took place in Paris in 1857 and a year later he met with then 18-year-old Claude Monet. Boudin’s influence on Monet was considerable in his development as a painter. Boudin’s work was displayed at the Art Academy’s annual exhibition of 1859 for the first time where he also made an impression on Charles Beaudelaire. He also met renowned French artist Gustave Courbet that same year.

With Normandy becoming one of the popular holiday destinations for French aristocracy in the 1860s, Boudin’s work gradually started to focus on depicting the overall ambiance of the lifes of the elite, painting their  walks and talks on small format canvas. Although his work wasn’t then yet fully appreciated by the public, he was well known among young artists and famous colleagues who appreciated his contributions to the art scene. French painter Jean-Baptiste Corot nicknamed him “King of the skys”.

Although he took part of the first impressionism movement exhibition, he never fully commited himself to this art movement.

Eugène Boudin died in 1898 in Deauville, Normandy leaving behind more than 400 art pieces.

About the Art museum 
MuMa: André Malraux Modern Art Museum, Le Havre, France

This museum is located in Le Havre, where such renowned artists as Monet, Dubuffet, Friesz, Dufy and Braque were born. André Malraux opened the museum in 1961. The pride of this art gallery are the collections from the end of 19th and 20th century with art work from impressionism and fauvism movement artists. Thanks to contributions from Hélène Senn-Foulds, the museum has the most important collection of French impressionism art work in France outside of the Paris region. Its pride possessions are paintings by Monet, Renoir, Pissaro, Sisley and Degas and other art works by Courbet and Corot.     

The original Art Museum of Le Havre was founded in 1845. At first, it showed varied types of exhibitions from fine arts to natural sciences displays. From the beginning of the 20th century it  specialised only in fine arts.

The museum was destroyed in 1944 due to bombardments. The sculptures that had remained there during the war are almost entirely lost but the 1500 paintings that were taken outside the museum were saved. The city of Le Havre commissioned four architects: Guy Lagneau, Michel Weil, Jean Dimitrijevic and Raymond Audigier to build a new museum in 1951. The new museum building is of modern style consisting of glass, steel  and aluminum materials that form a hexahedron that lets light enter from every direction, including the ceiling which accentuates the interactions of light with the paintings.

This museum, built by the sea acts as a true culture and creativity hub, showing the progressive nature of French culture. It serves also as a conference center, theater and music hall.