"The narrow focus of the art history world is concerned primarily with a handful of renowned figures, resulting in repetitive research and exhibitions of their lives and work. The goal of this biography is to resurrect the memory of Pierre Édouard Frère, founder of the Ecouen School during the second half of the nineteenth century. Genre painting was fashionable at that time but is no longer. Depictions of the peasant’s world of that era does not attract much interest today except in a sociological context. Yet, consider the Barbizon School, a name engraved in most memories. During its day, the paintings of Édouard Frère often brought higher prices than those of Jean-François Millet or Théodore Rousseau. Vincent van Gogh, one of the most famous painters, wrote letters laudatory of Frère. Édouard Frère left no written record of his life; therefore, we had to carefully search for scattered information among the writings of his foreign students, most of them women. These female painters were welcomed at the Ecouen School during a time of intense segregation and did not face the rampant sexism found elsewhere. I hope this biography will inspire others to acknowledge the man who made French genre painting famous in the United Kingdom and America through his work and the work of his students."-- On back of cover.
Biographie de Pierre Édouard Frère (1819-1886)