Henry Pierre Picou, was a French Neoclassical / Neo Grec painter known for his mythological,
history, and Orientalist paintings.
His oeuvre began with portraits and classical historical subject matter but he later moved
on to allegorical and mythological themes.
He was born in Nantes, Upper Brittany, France on February 27, 1824.
Picou studied at the Ecole Nationale, Superieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris, under Swiss academic
painter Charles Gleyre.
Gleyre was a popular teacher and his students became giants in the art world, including
Claude Monet, Pierre Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley and James Abbott McNeill Whistler.
The Swiss master's precise draughtsmanship and perspective drawing was instilled within
his students, including the work of Picou.
It was at the Ecole that Picou met like-minded fellow artists Jean-Léon Gérome, Jean Louis
Hamon and Gustave Boulanger, all of whom with Picou championed the French Neoclassic movement.
Neoclassic art looked to the grandeur and formality of Greek and Roman antiquity, their
myths and history as a reaction to the overly stylized Rococo movement.
Picou and his fellow artists sought a rational, methodical and logical approach to art, rejecting
artistic whim.
Of the artist's circle, Picou's work shows the closest stylistic ties to his teacher
Gleyre.
Gleyre traveled for more than six years in the Far East which would also influenced Picou.
He was an academic painter and one of the founders of the Neo-Grec school, along with
his close friends Gustave Boulanger, Jean Léon Gérôme, and Jean Louis Hamon, also
academic painters.
All of them studied in the workshops of both Paul Delaroche and later Charles Gleyre.
Picou's style was noticeably influenced by Gleyre.
While the rest of the group generally painted classical and mythological subjects,
During his career, Picou began with portraits, proceeded to classical historical subject
matter and finished with allegorical and mythological themes.
Picou also received commissions for large religious frescoes from many churches, including
the Église Saint-Roch.
Picou exhibited at the Paris Salon beginning in 1847.
In 1848, he won a second-place medal for his Cléopâtre et Antoine sur le Cydnus [also
know as Cleopatra on the Cydnus].
It is commonly regarded as Picou's masterpiece.
This showing at the Salon in 1848 was written about by the French art critic Théophile
Gautier that the work was, "too ambitious", but also said that, "as it is, it gives the
best hope for the future of the young artist, and ranks among the seven or eight most important
paintings of the Salon."
It was such an important painting, considered one of Picou's masterpieces, that it traveled
to American in 1875, the painting was exhibited in New York, and afterward found lodgment
on the walls of a private art gallery in San Francisco, CA.
After his great Salon success, Picou opened and maintained a large workshop in Paris on
the Boulevard de Magenta, which provided him room to work on his expansive frescoes.
His popularity continued to rise and he went on to win the Second Prix de Rome in 1853
for his painting, Jésus chassant les vendeurs du Temple (also know as The Moneylenders Chased
from the Temple), and another second-class medal for his Salon painting in 1857.
From his debut in 1847, he was a regular at the Salon, showing almost every year until
his final exhibit in 1893, two years before his death.
He has been called the most fashionable painter towards the close of the Second French Empire.
Picou died on July 17, 1895.