Ker-Xavier Roussel was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 painter

Painting

Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...

 associated with Les Nabis

Les Nabis

Les Nabis were a group of Post-Impressionist avant-garde artists who set the pace for fine arts and graphic arts in France in the 1890s. Initially a group of friends interested in contemporary art and literature, most of them studied at the private art school of Rodolphe Julian in Paris in the...

.

Born François Xavier Roussel in Lorry-lès-Metz

Lorry-lès-Metz

Lorry-lès-Metz is a commune in the Moselle department in Lorraine in north-eastern France.-See also:*Communes of the Moselle department...

, Moselle

Moselle

Moselle is a department in the east of France named after the river Moselle.- History :Moselle is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...

, at age fifteen he studied at the Lycée Condorcet

Lycée Condorcet

The Lycée Condorcet is a school founded in 1803 in Paris, France, located at 8, rue du Havre, in the city's IXe arrondissement. Since its inception, various political eras have seen it given a number of different names, but its identity today honors the memory of the Marquis de Condorcet. The...

 in Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

; alongside his friend Édouard Vuillard

Édouard Vuillard

Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...

, he also studied at the studio of painter Diogène Maillart. In 1888 he enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts

École des Beaux-Arts refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The most famous is the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, now located on the left bank in Paris, across the Seine from the Louvre, in the 6th arrondissement. The school has a history spanning more than 350 years,...

, and soon began frequenting the Académie Julian

Académie Julian

The Académie Julian was an art school in Paris, France.Rodolphe Julian established the Académie Julian in 1868 at the Passage des Panoramas, as a private studio school for art students. The Académie Julian not only prepared students to the exams at the prestigious École des Beaux-Arts, but offered...

 where Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and education:...

 and other students formed the group Les Nabis.

He is best known for paintings of French landscapes usually depicting women, children, nymphs and fauns in bucolic settings. In 1899, Roussel, Vuillard, and another close friend, Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard

Pierre Bonnard was a French painter and printmaker, as well as a founding member of Les Nabis.-Biography:...

, traveled to Lake Como

Lake Como

Lake Como is a lake of glacial origin in Lombardy, Italy. It has an area of 146 km², making it the third largest lake in Italy, after Lake Garda and Lake Maggiore...

, Venice

Venice

Venice is a city in northern Italy which is renowned for the beauty of its setting, its architecture and its artworks. It is the capital of the Veneto region...

 and Milan

Milan

Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

.

In 1926 Ker-Xavier Roussel won the Carnegie Prize

Carnegie Prize

The Carnegie Prize is an international prize for artists, awarded by the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.The prize should not be confused with the Carnegie Medal, which is awarded for children's literature....

 for art.

Ker-Xavier Roussel died in 1944 at his home in L'Étang-la-Ville

L'Étang-la-Ville

L'Étang-la-Ville is a commune in the Yvelines department in the Île-de-France in north-central France.It has 5000 inhabitants, of which the average salary is 50 000 €. It is currently France's 12th richest town income wise.-References:*...

, Yvelines

Yvelines

Yvelines is a French department in the region of Île-de-France.-History:Yvelines was created from the western part of the defunct department of Seine-et-Oise on 1 January 1968 in accordance with a law passed on 10 January 1964 and a décret d'application from 26 February 1965.It gained the...

.

Roussel is mentioned in Gertrude Stein's Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas, chapter 3. There she recounts an exchange he had with Theodore Duret in Vollard's shop at an uncertain date after 1904. Roussel complained of the lack of recognition that he and the other Nabi painters had to contend with. Duret consoled him by pointing out his incompatibility with the manners and fashions of the bourgeois world and the differences between "art" and "official art".

External links

• Paintings by Ker-Xavier Roussel (public domain in Canada)