Henri Adam

12¼ by 8⅜ in.

31.3 by 21.3 cm.

A student of Philippe Zacharie at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, Henri Adam was an amateur artist who worked by day in a bank in Rouen, and it was not until he was forty-five that he was able to devote himself full time to painting. He remains an obscure figure, however, and very little is known of his career. A member of the Société des aquarellistes and of the Salon des artistes français, he was employed as a professor of drawing at the Collège de Normandie, and seems to have produced paintings and watercolors in his spare time. Adam painted views along the coast between Brittany and Ostend in Belgium, as well his native city of Rouen. At his death, a newspaper in Rouen announced the death of a ‘highly esteemed and distinguished watercolorist whose name and talent had been made popular by numerous exhibitions.’

Two watercolor views of Rouen by the artist are today in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, while a pastel landscape is in the Fondation Custodia in Paris.

The present sheet is a fine example of Adam’s watercolor technique. The way in which he depicts the forest, through a balance of lightly washed areas in the background to more developed trees in the foreground, reflects the way in which the eye absorbs the scene.