Eugène Boudin

Eugène Louis Boudin(French:[øʒɛnlwibudɛ̃]; 12 July 1824 – 8 August 1898) was one of the firstFrenchlandscape paintersto paint outdoors. Boudin was amarinepainter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores. Hispastels, summary and economic, garnered the splendid eulogy ofBaudelaire;andCorotcalled him the "King of the skies".
Born atHonfleur, Boudin was the son of a harbor pilot, and at age 10 the young boy worked on a steamboat that ran betweenLe Havreand Honfleur. In 1835 the family moved to Le Havre, where Boudin's father opened a store for stationery and picture frames. Here the young Eugene worked, later opening his own small shop. Boudin's father had thus abandoned seafaring, and his son gave it up too, having no real vocation for it, though he preserved to his last days much of a sailor's character: frankness, accessibility, and open-heartedness.
In his shop, in which pictures were framed, Boudin came into contact with artists working in the area and exhibited in the shop the paintings ofConstant TroyonandJean-François Millet, who, along withJean-Baptiste IsabeyandThomas Couturewhom he met during this time, encouraged young Boudin to follow an artistic career. At the age of 22 he abandoned the world of commerce, started painting full-time, and travelled to Paris the following year and then throughFlanders. In 1850 he earned a scholarship that enabled him to move to Paris, where he enrolled as a student in the studio ofEugène Isabeyand worked as a copyist at the Louvre. To supplement his income he often returned to paint inNormandyand, from 1855, made regular trips toBrittany. On 14 January 1863 he married the 28-year-old Breton woman Marie-Anne Guédès in Le Havre and set up home in Paris.
Dutch 17th-century masters profoundly influenced him, and on meeting the Dutch painterJohan Jongkind, who had already made his mark in French artistic circles, Boudin was advised by his new friend to paint outdoors (en plein air). He also worked with Troyon and Isabey, and in 1859 metGustave Courbetwho introduced him toCharles Baudelaire, the first critic to draw Boudin's talents to public attention when the artist made his debut at the 1859Paris Salon.
In 1857/58 Boudin befriended the youngClaude Monet, then only 17, and persuaded him to give up his teenage caricature drawings and to become a landscape painter, helping to instil in him a love of bright hues and the play of light on water later evident in Monet's Impressionist paintings. The two remained lifelong friends and Monet later paid tribute to Boudin's early influence. Boudin joined Monet and his young friends in theFirst Impressionist Exhibitionin 1873,  but never considered himself a radical or innovator.
Both Boudin and Monet lived abroad during theFranco-Prussian Warof 1870–71, Boudin in Antwerp and Monet in London; from 1873 to 1880 the Boudins lived in Bordeaux. His growing reputation enabled him to travel extensively at that time, visiting Belgium, the Netherlands and southern France. He continued to exhibit at the Paris Salons, receiving a third place medal at the Paris Salon of 1881, and a gold medal at the 1889 Exposition Universelle. In 1892 Boudin was made a knight of theLégion d'honneur, a somewhat tardy recognition of his talents and influence on the art of his contemporaries.
Late in his life, after the death of his wife in 1889, Boudin spent every winter in the south of France as a refuge from his own poor health, and from 1892 to 1895 made regular trips to Venice. In 1898, recognizing that his life was almost spent, he returned to his home atDeauville, to die on 8 August within sight of theEnglish Channeland under the Channel skies he had painted so often.He was buried according to his wishes in theSaint-Vincent Cemeteryin Montmartre, Paris.
The Eugène Boudin Prize is an award given by theSociété Nationale des Beaux-Arts. Among the laureates of this award, the following painters were nominated: