Eugène Burnand was born in Switzerland in 1850, the son of the arms manufacturer Edouard Burnand. The family was wealthy and politically influential, supplying both the Swiss and Italian armies with weapons. After studying architecture at the ETH in Zurich, Burnand trained as a painter in Geneva and Paris from 1872 onwards, with studies of contemporary printmaking techniques being added. He was awarded gold medals at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889 and 1900. Burnand worked as an illustrator, made etchings and copperplate engravings and became a knight of the Legion of Honour after the death of his father.
After 1895 religious motifs determined his painting. The artist's most famous work, "The disciples John and Peter, walking to the tomb the morning after the resurrection", dates from this phase of his career and was painted in 1898. 104 pastel and pencil portraits, created between 1917 and 1920, show Eugène Burnand paying tribute to victims of all 45 nationalities represented in the First World War. He continued the project from Marseilles when he returned to Paris from Switzerland in 1918 after the end of the war. At that time he already called France his "second home".
Several of his children were born in France. Family members had fought for France in the First World War. Burnand was impressed by the large number of nations involved in the conflict, traced racist prejudices and theories in his depictions and explicitly wanted to capture personalities of military "type" in his portraits. At meetings in Paris, Montpellier and Marseilles, Burnard drew the sitters with Wolff pens decorated with hard hard-muth pastels. Each portrait measures approximately 46 x 53 cm. All those portrayed described themselves as deeply affected by their experiences. They had experienced the sessions " like in a confessional". Burnand had captured their moods with consummate skill.
Robert Hamilton, portrayed in pastel 62, described his experience in his diary as follows: "A little-known French-Swiss artist asked me through the YMCA to pose for Monsieur Burnand. I thought I was a typical Australian, so more out of curiosity and to break the monotony of the visits, I went there. (...) The work was good and he sent me a reproduction of it to Australia. I took a photo of it. It gave me an insight into his French home. You know, no matter how good a friend you are to a Frenchman, you will never easily gain access to his home." Like many of his countrymen, Burnand's work sought to understand the unprecedented and unexpected horrors of World War I. Nevertheless, he tried to gain something positive from the events by actively engaging in close contact with all parties involved.
80 of his portraits were exhibited in May 1919 in the Luxembourg Museum in Paris and in June 1920 in the Brunner Gallery with a further 20 portraits, which received great public recognition. The portrait drawings remained the last works of the artist, who died in 1921.
Eugène Burnand was born in Switzerland in 1850, the son of the arms manufacturer Edouard Burnand. The family was wealthy and politically influential, supplying both the Swiss and Italian armies with weapons. After studying architecture at the ETH in Zurich, Burnand trained as a painter in Geneva and Paris from 1872 onwards, with studies of contemporary printmaking techniques being added. He was awarded gold medals at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889 and 1900. Burnand worked as an illustrator, made etchings and copperplate engravings and became a knight of the Legion of Honour after the death of his father.
After 1895 religious motifs determined his painting. The artist's most famous work, "The disciples John and Peter, walking to the tomb the morning after the resurrection", dates from this phase of his career and was painted in 1898. 104 pastel and pencil portraits, created between 1917 and 1920, show Eugène Burnand paying tribute to victims of all 45 nationalities represented in the First World War. He continued the project from Marseilles when he returned to Paris from Switzerland in 1918 after the end of the war. At that time he already called France his "second home".
Several of his children were born in France. Family members had fought for France in the First World War. Burnand was impressed by the large number of nations involved in the conflict, traced racist prejudices and theories in his depictions and explicitly wanted to capture personalities of military "type" in his portraits. At meetings in Paris, Montpellier and Marseilles, Burnard drew the sitters with Wolff pens decorated with hard hard-muth pastels. Each portrait measures approximately 46 x 53 cm. All those portrayed described themselves as deeply affected by their experiences. They had experienced the sessions " like in a confessional". Burnand had captured their moods with consummate skill.
Robert Hamilton, portrayed in pastel 62, described his experience in his diary as follows: "A little-known French-Swiss artist asked me through the YMCA to pose for Monsieur Burnand. I thought I was a typical Australian, so more out of curiosity and to break the monotony of the visits, I went there. (...) The work was good and he sent me a reproduction of it to Australia. I took a photo of it. It gave me an insight into his French home. You know, no matter how good a friend you are to a Frenchman, you will never easily gain access to his home." Like many of his countrymen, Burnand's work sought to understand the unprecedented and unexpected horrors of World War I. Nevertheless, he tried to gain something positive from the events by actively engaging in close contact with all parties involved.
80 of his portraits were exhibited in May 1919 in the Luxembourg Museum in Paris and in June 1920 in the Brunner Gallery with a further 20 portraits, which received great public recognition. The portrait drawings remained the last works of the artist, who died in 1921.
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