Georges Stein
Georges Stein (Paris, 12 February 1864 - Geneva, 1917), was a French Impressionist artist. The name is a pseudonym for his actual name, Séverin Louis Stein. A painter and draughtsman, he is known primarily for light-infused views of Paris and London. He also painted scenes from Melun, Vichy, Bern, Geneva, and Monte Carlo. Biography. Stein was born in Paris, the son of Marc-Séverin, a bookbinder, and Barbe Kintziger. By 1906, he was living in Montigny-sur-Loing. Style. His works are marked by spontaneity, dynamism and movement, giving the viewer the feeling of participating in the scenes  observed. Under the influence of Jean Béraud, he worked in particular on the treatment of light to translate the bustle of Parisian life. He populated his paintings with elegant women in a hurry as they went about their daily business. He exhibited eight paintings at the 1906 Salon des Indépendants. In response to a commission in 1910 by Léon Roubot, director of the Élysée-Palace, Georges Stein produced a set of four large canvases for the decor of this new casino in Vichy. These four monumental views bear witness to the vogue for spas and the leisure activities they offered  to society during the Belle Époque: carriage rides, visits to the brasseries, the casino and the racetrack. He was a member of the Société des artistes français and exhibited at the Salon des artistes français from 1912 to 1914, during which time he lived in Melun. He was a student of Jules Lefebvre and Gustave Boulanger. In 2021, the municipality of Melun decided to name a new street in the town after Georges Stein. Conflict of sources. Sources conflict about Stein's dates of birth and death. The Benezit Dictionary of Artists gives the year of birth as "c. 1870 . The auction house Christie's", among others, gives the dates 1855–1930, and the French National Library the dates 1870–1955. There is also some confusion as to the gender of Stein. Some gallery websites describe Stein as a female painter.