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 Leon Emile Caille, French 1836 – 1907
Leon Caille was well known for his small, simple works of peasant life and the strength of their appeal to human nature. His interiors glow with the freshness and innocence of happy childhood and domestic life as they capture and characterize the intimacy and affection of the scene.
Born in Merville, France, he was initially a student in Aire-sur-la-Lys of Henri Magnard, a painter and decorator. He spent two years in the academic school of Lille, France, under Souchon and Colas before being admitted, in 1856, to the prestigious Ecole-des-Beaux-Arts in Paris. There his instructors were Leon Cogniet, a painter of historical subjects who was also an Officer in the Legion of Honor, and Edmond Castan, a genre specialist. Caille began exhibiting at the annual Paris Salon in 1861, receiving medals in 1879 and 1882.
Intimate friends with Puvis de Chavannes and Carolus Duran, Caille joined them in agitation against the academic Salon system. This resulted, in 1890, in the establishment of a powerful rival, the Society of French Artists.
Biography excerpted from the unpublished catalog by Edward P. Bentley for the Haussner Restaurant in Baltimore, Maryland, titled: Haussner’s, The Children.
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