LOUIS WELDEN HAWKINS

British, 1849–1910

BIOGRAPHY
Louis Welden Hawkins was born in Stuttgart, Germany, the son of a British naval officer and the Austrian Baroness von Welden. He grew up in England and served in the Royal Navy before settling in Paris in his early twenties.

In Paris, Hawkins studied at the Académie Julian along with a circle of other young painters from America and England. His teachers included William Bouguereau, Gustave Boulanger, and Jules Lefebvre.  His early work was influenced by Jules Bastien-Lepage but in the later 1880s he took on some of the monumental style of Puvis de Chavannes.

The emerging Symbolist movement had a significant influence on Hawkins during the 1890s, with writers such as Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Adam being amongst his friends.  He exhibited regularly at the annual Paris Salon from 1881 (when he exhibited Les Orphelins to great acclaim) until his death.  In addition, he participated in the important Salon de la Rose-Croix in 1894 and 1895 and worked as an illustrator for the journal L'Oeuvre d'Art. 

In 1895, Hawkins took on French nationality and spent the later years of his life in Brittany painting views of rustic life including both landscapes and figural subjects.  Several of his works are in the collection of the Musée d'Orsay in addition to other important public and private collections. An exhibition dedicated to Hawkins' work was held at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam in 1993.

Museum Collections:
Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, Scotland
Hôtel de Ville, Pouyastruc (Hautes-Pyrénées)
Musée d'Art Moderne, Troyes
Musée Départemental Stéphane Mallarmé, Vilaines-sur-Seine
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nice
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Musée du Petit-Palais, Paris
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam

Mark Murray Fine Paintings is a New York gallery specializing in buying and selling 19th century and early 20th century artwork. 

Please contact us if you are interested in selling your Louis Welden Hawkins paintings or other artwork from the 19th century and early 20th century. 

LOUIS WELDEN HAWKINS
Paintings for sale