September Birthday Artist Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

Born in Algeria on September 30, 1865, Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer studied in Paris and initially began creating wonderful ceramic pieces that combined Islamic influences with the burgeoning Art Nouveau forms and motifs of the time. In his artwork, he was exceptionally gifted in his use of pastels and had a haunting dreamy style that would make him one of the most admired Symbolists in France. Toward the 20th century, Lévy-Dhurmer shifted his perspective more toward landscapes and music-influenced portraits.

Some fine examples of Lévy-Dhurmer’s artwork can be seen at the Musée d'Orsay, and his pottery can be found in such collections as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Detroit Institute of the Arts. The cryptic 1895 Le Silence pictured below is from the Musée d'Orsay as well. I also came across a 1906 feature titled "Modern French Pastellists" by Frances Keyzer in a Google Book search; the piece spotlights Lévy-Dhurmer, who was then still alive and casting his mystical spell. Here’s an excerpt:

The surroundings play a special and important part in this artist's work, for they are almost invariably imaginative, or efforts of memory…that clearness of vision which is one of M. Levy-Dhurmer's salient characteristics enables him to reconstitute and reproduce a landscape that has impressed him. In fact, the painter not only sees again the rocks and the trees, the hills and the valleys he has admired, but the same sensations that moved him at the time are revived in him with scarcely any diminution of strength.

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer died in the Paris suburb of Le Vésinet on September 24, 1953.