Henri Delavallée Biography

Jules Henri Delavallée (1862-1943) was a French painter and engraver.

Delavallée was born on 24th April 1862 in Reims, France. He enrolled at the Sorbonne and at the École des Beaux-Arts, where he studied under Carolus-Duran and Luc-Olivier Merson. He married a painter, Gabrielle Moreau.

In 1881, he went to Pont-Aven (staying at the Manoir du Plessis, then in Nizon, with the Hersart de La Villemarqué family, cousins of his friend Hersart du Buron, also a painter) and stayed there regularly in the following years, meeting Paul Gauguin and Émile Bernard in 1886. In 1887, he went to Bourron-Marlotte, working with Camille Pissarro and Georges Seurat, and in 1889 to the hamlet of Landemer in Gréville, the birthplace of Jean-François Millet. During this time, he painted Divisionist and Pointillist works.

He returned to Pont-Aven in 1894, settling in the Hôtel Julia, owned by Julia Guillou (1848-1927), also known as "Mademoiselle Julia," and created a pen-and-ink portrait of Marie Jeanne Gloanec (1839-1915), also known as "La Mère Gloanec," one of the three famous innkeepers of the "Pont-Aven School," along with Angélique Marie Satre (1868-1932), also known as "La Belle Angèle," immortalised by Gauguin. However, drawn by the exotic, he and his wife left for Constantinople, not returning to France until 1901. Until 1910, they lived sometimes in Paris, sometimes in Apremont, and sometimes in Pont-Aven, where the couple settled permanently in 1910. Henri Delavallée was then a friend of Théodore Botrel.

He died on 12th June 1943 in Pont-Aven, France.