Eugène Druet (26 June 1867 – 21 January 1916) was a French photographer and art dealer.
Life He was born at 206 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Martin in Paris to Eugène Alphonse Druet and Alphonine Augustine Herbinière, then grocers. Archives de la ville de Paris, Birth Registration, 1860–1870. He initially rented and ran Yacht Club français, a small family café at place de l'Alma (now avenue du Président-Wilson) which he bought in 1893. Serge Gérard, Rodin, l´homme d´airain, Éditions Cheminements, 2004. Auguste Rodin's Dépôt des marbres studio at 182 rue de l'Université was not far from 'Druet's café, Chronologie de la vie de Rodin sur www.musee-rodin.fr. and the sculptor regularly came to the latter and introduced him to the photography of art.
After meeting Rodin in 1896, Druet produced several photographs of Rodin's sculptures and often acted as his official photographer. According to Hélène Pinet . it is unclear why Rodin chose Druet but he may simply have been impressed by the amateur photographs Druet showed him. They worked together until 1900, when they little by little grew apart, notably because Druet was almost never paid for his voluntary work for Rodin. 1900 also saw Rodin's major retrospective at the pavillon de l'Alma during the Exposition universelle L´exposition Rodin au pavillon de l´Alma (1900), on www.histoire-image.org. – it was almost entirely organised by Druet and included a section with 71 of his photographs.Short article on´Eugène Druet
On Rodin's advice Druet abandoned his café to open an art gallery at 114 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré in 1903, moving to 20 rue Royale in 1908. Courte biographie d´Eugène Druet on a site devoted to commune Sainte-Marguerite-de-Carrouges. It soon became well-known and is mentioned in chapter three of Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas : His rich clients included Russian Ivan Morozov. La peinture française au musée Pouchkine, no. 174. In 1908 he was made an Officier de l'Instruction publique.
He continued to photograph art, especially paintings. He thus sold paintings and his own photographs in his gallery. Courte biographie d´Eugène Druet on www.autochromes.culture.fr. This idea to sell reproductions of paintings which he was exhibiting allowed him to make extra profits. Guillaume Apollinaire wrote that the photographs at the galerie Druet "reproduce in a completely satisfactory way famous paintings from Leonardo da Vinci to Maurice Denis via Titian, Ingres, Toulouse-Lautrec and Cézanne".Chroniques d'art, 10 January 1911. he became recognised in art circles – for example, on 2 March 1913 he assisted in the major auction of works from the La peau de l'ours collection in rooms 7 and 8 of the hôtel Drouot, where he acted as an expert alongside Josse and Gaston Bernheim-Jeune. .
Between 1903 and 1938 his gallery exhibited nearly 1300 artists, Pierre Sanchez, Les expositions de la galerie Eugène Druet : répertoire des artistes exposants et liste de leurs œuvres, 1903–1938, preface by Dominique Vieville, Éditions L'Échelle de Jacob, 2009. including Georges Manzana-Pissarro, Charles Camoin, Henri Manguin, Catalogue de l´exposition Henri Manguin à la galerie Fleury, du 15 septembre au 15 novembre 2010. Théo van Rysselberghe, Odilon RedonListe des expositions d´Odilon Redon sur la base de données Joconde. Albert Marquet, The painting View of the Pont-Neuf (short arm) is marked "GALERIE DRUET 114 faub. St-Honoré, PARIS ; no. 36 32 ; Marquet Rue de Paris neige." on the top of its frame Léon Lehmann, Maurice Denis, Jacqueline Marval, Paul Cézanne, Article on Cézanne on www.artsetsocietes.org : E. Druet lent The Old Woman with the Rosary to the Armory Show exhibitition in New-York in 1913. Fernand Labat, Jules Cavaillès, Diana Wiegersma, Jules Cavaillès, Jules Cavaillès Research Center, May 2007. Jean Fernand-Trochain Magdeleine Dayot, « Expositions visitées : Galerie Druet », L'Art et les Artistes, October 1932, p. 178 and Maurice Georges Poncelet.
He died in Paris of brain congestion in 1916. after his death his wife ran the gallery until 1938, when it closed. His archive of 30,000 plates were bought by François Antoine Vizzavona, himself a photographer of art and publisher.
As a photographer Druet used Lumière autochrome plates to produce some of his photographs. He mostly used the 9.12 cm formats, but also the 13.18 cm and 18.24 cm. His talent even gave his name to the Druet process. le procédé Druet on the Réunion des Musées nationaux website
Initially his production essentially consisted of photographs of Rodin's works from life. The art critic Claude Anet stated that they "not only reproduce all the delicacy of the model, the beauty of their plans and lines, but also [...] the power of evoking the works themselves". Next he produced a series of photographs of Vincent van Gogh's paintings around the time they were starting to become famous (L'Arlésienne, Jardin à Auvers, Portrait du docteur Gachet). This series contributed to spreading knowledge of van Gogh's work. He also produced a series of photographs of the dancer Vaslav Nijinski on 19 June 1910 in the painter Jacques-Émile Blanche's garden.Description of the Nijinski series on www.christies.com.
In a 1908 issue of the Bulletin de la SFP a writer stated "Unlike a very large number of photographers, content with approximations without worrying about the accuracy of values, Monsieur Druet is always concerned with orthochromatism, thus achieving a fidelity of rendering vital in reproducing works of art". Bulletin de la SFP, 1908.
Most of his photographs are preserved at the médiathèque de l'architecture et du patrimoine at fort de Saint-Cyr as the Fonds Druet-Vizzavona, which holds around 150,000 photographic plates and is made up of Druet's collection (30,000 plates) and that of the Vizzanova family, which were merged in 1939.
Exhibitions of his work 1900, Paris, pavillon de l'Alma, with works by Auguste Rodin, with a section for Druet's photographs. Article Rodin en images on www.rfi.fr. 16 January 1994 to 6 March 1994, Licht und Schatten. Rodin-Photographien von Eugène Druet, Georg Kolbe Museum, Berlin. 14 November 2007 to 2 March 2008, Rodin sous l'œil des photographes, musée Rodin, Paris.
Selected exhibitions at the galerie Druet Dates Year(s) Artist(s) Notes 5–16 November 1903 Théo van Rysselberghe November–December 1903 Maurice Denis, Paul Sérusier, Ker-Xavier Roussel, Armand Seguin, Maximilien Luce, Henri-Edmond Cross & Albert ClouardBruno Belleil, « Albert Clouard… », Ar Men, n°31, 1990, p. 74 22 November – 10 December 1904 Maurice Denis Catalogue with a preface by André Gide Bibliographical entry on the base de données de la BnF. 1905Théo van RysselbergheJanuary–February 1905Berthe Morisot.List of exhibitions of Berthe Morisot's work. 1906Henri MatisseMajor retrospective18–30 November 1907André RouveyreOriginal drawings25 October – 6 November 1909Vladislav Granzow7–19 November 1910André LhotePaintings27 February – 12 March 1911Théo van RysselberghePaintings 1912Jacqueline Marval 44 paintings, including The Three Roses (1910) List of exhibition of Jacqueline Marval's work.December 1912Henri Farge1–13 December 1913Jules FlandrinPaintings 1913 Publicity for the catalogue for the La peau de l'ours sale, with 16 reproductions26 January – 7 February 1914Raoul de Mathan9–21 February 1914Baignières, Desvallières, Dethomas, Dufrénoy, Jules Flandrin, Charles Guérin, Marque, Rouault and Jacqueline Marval5–27 March 1917Henri Valensi Paintings and drawings of the Dardanelles campaign and of the 1915–1916 campaign in Greece as "painter to the expeditionary corps staff"; as well as being a painter the artist was an animator, film director, art theorician and one of the founders of musicalism.20–31 January 1919Lucien Jacques and Joseph Gilardoni 1921 Albert HuyotSummer 1921Robert Bevan, Stanisława de Karłowska, Harold Gilman, Edward McKnight Kauffer, John Nash, Edward WadsworthLe Figaro, 4 July 1921, p.2 – on Retronews.Entitled "A Group of English Modern Painters".November–December 1921Robert Lotiron 1922Lucien Jacques 1922Lucien Jacques 1922Henri Lebasque 1923Théo van Rysselberghe 1923Odilon Redon 1924Pierre Bonnard« Pierre Bonnard » on larousse.fr.Retrospective 1924 Maurice Asselin 1925 Pedro Figari 1926 Irène RenoMarch–April 1926 Jean Helleu Timeline of Jean Helleu's exhibitions on www.artnet.de 1926Berthe MorisotPastels, watercolours, drawings and crayon drawingsDecember 1926 Jean Puy & Henry de Waroquier 1929 Zoum Walter 1929, 1930, 1933, 1937Marcel Roche 1932Adrienne Jouclard 1933 Dimitri Bouchène 1934Joseph Rossi Marius Richard, « Joseph Rossi peintre mélancolique », in: La Liberté, Paris, 22 June 1934, p.4.February 1935 Pauline Peugniez 1935Émile Bouneau 1935Celso Lagar 1936Roland Oudot 1936Jean AujameNovember 1936Gérard Cochet, Othon Coubine, Henriette Deloras, Robert Lotiron, Jacques Lestrille, Hélène Marre & Georges SabbaghRecent works17–28 January 1938Raymond LegueultMay–June 1938 André Villeboeuf
References
Bibliography (in French) Hélène Pinet, Les photographes de Rodin : Jacques-Ernest Bulloz, Eugène Druet, Stephen Haweis et Henry Coles, Jean-François Limet, Eduard Steichen, Paris, Musée Rodin, 1986, . Rodin et la photographie, [exhibition catalogue] Guide des collections du musée Rodin, Paris, Musée Rodin, 2008. Pierre Sanchez, Les expositions de la galerie Eugène Druet. Répertoire des artistes exposants et liste de leurs œuvres, 1903–1938, preface by Dominique Vieville, Éditions L'Échelle de Jacob, 2009.