Eugène-François-Adolphe Deshayes
French, 1868-1939
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Eugène François Deshayes was a French painter. Eugène Deshayes was born in Algiers in 1862. As a child, he was often sick and bedridden. He then asks for a slate, a pencil and draws from morning to night. At the Algiers high school, he distinguished himself in the drawing class. Still very young, he lost his parents and was brought up by his brother, then a young doctor at the hospital in Douera.
He joined the School of Fine Arts of Algiers then directed by Emile-Charles Labbé, landscape painter from the school of Barbizon. He finally obtained a scholarship to integrate the Fine Arts in Paris, in 1882. He trained in the studio of the painter Gérôme, regularly attended the Louvre where he made copies. In direct contact with nature, he painted Versailles, the Parc Monceau and went so far as to sell his "Snow Landscape in Clamart" to the famous art dealer Durand-Ruel.
On his return to Algiers in 1890, the press immediately favored him. He exhibits at the Dru gallery, paintings from the Paris region and the surroundings of Algiers. He also participates every year in the Salon des Artistes français in Paris. Lover of Nature and the play of light, he studies Mediterranean flora and fauna. He even sometimes paints from a workshop boat, the sea and its variations at all hours of the day. He loves the effervescent life of the ports, the ships, the paddle steamers. Traveling through southern Algeria, he also follows the caravans, within the vast Saharan expanses.
He plants his easel all over the region: Ouargla, Biskra, Batna, Timgad .. and also travels through Morocco, southern Oran, Tunisia ... In 1900, he painted one of the fourteen decorative panels of the Pavilion of Algeria at the Universal Exhibition. Sallès, Chataud, Muller, Noailly, Sintès, Antony, Reynaud and his friend Bertrand share the others. He received many awards: the Knight's Cross of the Legion of Honor in 1935, a gold medal for his participation in the International Exhibition in 1937. He died in 1939.