Louis Dewis (1872–1946) was the pseudonym of Belgian Post-Impressionist painter Louis DeWachter, who was also an innovative and highly successful businessman. He helped organize and managed the first department store chain.
Early life He was born Isidore Louis DeWachter in Leuze, Belgium,A Great Artist Disappears, Journal de Biarritz (Biarritz, France); 17 December 1946 the eldest son among the seven children of Isidore Louis DeWachter and Eloise Desmaret DeWachter.Catalogue for Dewis Rediscovered (1998), Courthouse Galleries, Portsmouth, Virginia The father went by Isidore, while the future Dewis was called Louis. The name "DeWachter" has Flemish roots, however Louis DeWachter always considered himself a Walloon.
Isidore and his two brothers (Benjamin and Modeste) originated the idea of the chain department store when they formed Maisons Dewachter (Houses of Dewachter) in 1868,Le Pantheon de L'Industrie (Paris, France); 1891, Page 20 which they formally incorporated as the Belgian firm Dewachter frères (Dewachter Brothers) on 1 January 1875. For business purposes, they had decided not to use the capital "W" in the family name and because the chain became so famous, published references to the family would also be spelled "Dewachter". By the time of Dewis's death, the family had adopted the spelling "Dewachter" as well.
Maisons Dewachter introduced the idea of ready-made – or ready-to-fit – clothing for men and children, and specialty clothing such as riding apparel and beachwear.Annexes to the Belgian Monitor of 1875. Acts, Extracts of Acts, Minutes and Documents relating to Corporations, Book #3, Page 67 Isidore owned 51% of the company, while his brothers split the remaining 49%. They started with four locations: the Walloon city of Leuze (where Louis was born), La Louvière and two at Mons. Under Isidore's (and later Louis') leadership, Maisons Dewachter would become one of the most recognized names in Belgium and France."Dewachter" stores were still operating in 2019. The stores in Montpelier were still using the Dewachter trade name but had no apparent connection to the founding family. The 1895 founding date promoted on the 2019 website may have been the date the Montpelier Maison Dewachter location originally opened.
Soon after the company was formed, Isidore and his family moved to Liège to open another branch. It was in that industrial city that Louis established a lifelong friendship with Richard Heintz (:fr:Richard Heintz) (1871–1929),Wallonie-en-Ligne on Richard Heintz (in French) who also became an internationally known landscape artist. Heintz is considered the outstanding representative of the Liège school of landscape painting,Liège school of landscape painting websiteRichard Heintz at the Liège school of landscape painting website a movement that greatly influenced Dewis's early work.
When Louis was 14, the family moved to Bordeaux, France, where Isidore established what would be the chain's flagship store. Louis, who had begun his studies at the Athénée Royal Liège, continued lycée (high school) at Bordeaux. For the rest of his life, he would remain an étranger – a Belgian citizen living in France.Transcribed interviews with Andrée DeWachter Ottoz (1995–2001)
Family
Louis DeWachter married Bordeaux socialite Elisabeth Marie Florigni (12 August 1873 - 25 August 1952) on 16 July 1896. Elisabeth was the daughter of Joseph-Jules FlorigniAnnuaire du tout Sud-Ouest illustré : comprenant les grandes familles et les notabilités de Bordeaux et des départements 1907-1908, Page 382 (1842 - 14 April 1919) and Rose Lesfargues Florigni (1843 - 11 September 1917).
There was a feeling among some members of the Florigni family, which traced its roots back to the court of Catherine de' Medici, that "Babeth" had "married down."Memoirs of Yvonne DeWachter Robinson Young, written in English
Jules Florigni administered the Bordeaux regional newspapers the Girond and La Petite GirondeBouchon, Georges and Gounouilhou, Gustave; Histoire d'une imprimerie bordelaise, 1600-1900: les imprimeries G. Gounouilhou, La Gironde, La petite Gironde; 1 January 1901; Pages 511 and 602Journal officiel de la République française (Paris, France); 15 November 1908; Page 7750 and was Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the French Legion of Honor).Annuaire de la presse française et étrangère et du monde politique (Paris, France); 1909 edition; Director Paul Bluysen; Page 280
Elisabeth's brother, Robert (1881–1945),Michigan Centennial History, Volume 5, pages 109 to 111, 1939 authored some 30 popular novels, several stage plays and at least ten screen plays.Canjels, Rudmer; "Distributing Silent Film Serials: Local Practices, Changing Forms, Cultural Transformation"; Routledge; 2011; Page 197 – In 1921, Robert Florigni adapted the screen plays for 10 episodes of the 15-episode film serial "The Sky Ranger"; George B. Seitz Productions (for Pathé Exchange) He was also a Paris-basedAzais, Jean Alphonse; "Annuaire international des lettres et des arts de langue ou de culture franc̜aise"; M. Jean Azais; 1921; Page 121 – Pierre-Robert Florigni lived at 19 boulevard Montmarte in Paris' 2nd Arrondissement journalist on the staff of La Petite Gironde and, like his father, Robert Florigni was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.French Wikipedia: Robert Florigni
In 1919, Dewis's older daughter, Yvonne Elisabeth Marie, (23 Sep 1897, Toulouse, France - 19 Feb 1966, Saint Petersburg, Florida, USA)Find a Grave a student at the University of Bordeaux where she met and, after a whirlwind courtship, married Bradbury Robinson (1884–1949), a graduate student from America. He was a widowed army officer (a combat veteran of the Great War) and a medical doctor who, after being discharged in the United States, had returned to France to continue his studies. The couple would travel around Western Europe as Dr. Robinson oversaw immigrant screening for the U.S. Public Health Service. In 1906, Robinson had gained fame in the United States for having thrown the first forward pass in an American football game.Nelson, David;The Anatomy of a Game: Football, the Rules, and the Men Who Made the Game; University of Delaware Press; 1994; Page 129 The couple moved to the United States in 1926. They had seven children together, and Yvonne also gained a stepson from her husband's first marriage (his first wife having died in 1914).
In her memoirs, Yvonne remembers that in the early years of Dewis's career, her mother regarded her father's painting with benign indifference. She writes that Elisabeth DeWachter was pleased with her husband's choice of "hobbies" in one sense, telling her friends, "at least it's not noisy."
As the years passed, Elisabeth took more interest. It was she who maintained Dewis's scrapbook of critical reviews for three decades.
His younger daughter and only other child, Andrée Marguerite Elisabeth (24 September 1903 in Rouen, France - 11 May 2002 in Paris),Deces en France (Deaths in France) married businessman Charles Jérôme Ottoz (1903–1993) in 1925, who proved to be less than supportive of his talented father-in-law.
Ottoz had his own connections to the art world. He was the namesake of his grandfather Jérôme (1819–1885),Wikimedia Commons page for Ottoz family tomb at Cimetière du Père-Lachaise in Paris. Note: Andrée Ottoz's husband Jérôme probably inherited the Corots in their residence from his grandfather's collection. Dewis cited Corot as an inspiration to his own work. the well-known Paris color merchant and art collector (especially of Corots) who loved to show his paintings to visitors at his shop on the rue Pigalle.The Sun (New York, New York); 24 January 1899; Page 6 Ottoz's grandfather was also the subject of the famous portrait painted in 1876 by Edgar Degas.edgar-degas.org; Portrait of Jerome Ottoz by Edgar Degas (1876)
A serious student of art, Andrée was passionate in her admiration of her father's work. As Yvonne lived in the States during the last 20 years of Dewis's life, Andrée was the artist's only child to witness the most important years of his career. She was so emotionally involved in his painting that one day Dewis wondered aloud whether his daughter would have loved him as much, "if I'd been a grocer." Years later, Andrée tearfully recalled assuring her father that she would.
Life as an artist delayed, success in business immediate Young Louis had displayed an interest (and astonishing talent) in art at the age of 8 – but Isidore was enraged at the thought that his offspring might waste his time with something as useless as painting. In a vain attempt to break his young son of his "bad habit," he would, on occasion, throw away or burn the boy’s canvases, paints and brushes.
The youngster's love of art could not be deterred. It could, however, be overwhelmed by business and family responsibilities. As the eldest son, Louis was expected to take over the family business. This was a duty that his father would not allow him to shirk and which made Louis' dream of life as an artist impossible.
Father and son, however, apparently made a good team. They doubled the number of cities and towns served by Maison Dewachter from 10 to 20 in Louis' first dozen years with the firm. Some cities had multiple stores, such as Bordeaux, which had three.Maison Dewachter Liège 1891 letterheadMaison Dewachter Bordeaux 1904 letterhead For more than a decade, it was Louis' job to move from one place to another in France to open new stores, which would then be run by one cousin or another.
By 1908, Louis was back in Bordeaux managing the flagship Grand Magasin (Department Store). He assumed ultimate responsibility for 15 of the Maisons Dewachter.1908 Maison Dewachter invoice identifying Louis as "successor"
He found a creative outlet as an active and innovative marketer, and ran ads in newspapers; distributed illustrated catalogues; placed advertising on billboards and on trolleys; and published several series of promotional postal cards. Some of the cards featured famous art, others humorous cartoons and another series bore images of Maison Dewachter signage that had been temporarily erected at well known locations.Maison Dewachter advertising materials at Delcampe.net
In addition to the management of an international chain of department stores, Louis was forced to assume an additional burden when a brother lost a small fortune gambling. With his father too infirm to deal with the situation, it once again fell to the oldest son to do his duty and settle the enormous debt. Louis had no choice but to borrow the sum from a very rich relation, something that humiliated him to his core. So, as a matter of honor, he insisted on repaying the loan with 100% interest – over the protests of the lender and everyone else in the family. As a result, the task took Louis several years. These responsibilities and World War I combined to condemn him to what was a frustrating life as a merchant, however successful, until after his father's death and the conclusion of the war.
Sunday painter Throughout his business career, Louis DeWachter maintained an atelier in his home and was essentially a Sunday painter.
His few surviving early works (dating from 1885 into the early 1900s) were unsigned because his father refused to allow him to sully the family name by associating it with such a frivolous undertaking. In about 1916, Dewachter signed his first work with the pseudonym "Louis Dewis" (pronounced Lew-WEE Dew-WEES). His nom d'artiste "Dewis" is composed of the first three letters of his last name – followed by the first two letters of his first name – Isidore.
As a wealthy merchant, his interest in art was not financially motivated. His daughter Yvonne wrote that, while living in Bordeaux, he turned down at least one offer of sponsorship – an offer conditioned on him giving up "the tailoring business."