James Tissot

James Tissot
Self-Portrait (1865), oil on canvas
Born
Jacques Joseph Tissot

(1836-10-15)15 October 1836
Died8 August 1902(1902-08-08) (aged 65)
Occupations
  • Painter
  • illustrator
  • artist

Jacques Joseph Tissot (French: [ʒɑk ʒozɛf tiso]; 15 October 1836 – 8 August 1902), better known as James Tissot (UK: /ˈtɪs/ TISS-oh, US: /tˈs/ tee-SOH), was a French painter, illustrator, and caricaturist. He was born to a drapery merchant and a milliner and decided to pursue a career in art at a young age, coming to incorporate elements of realism, early Impressionism, and academic art into his work. He is best known for a variety of genre paintings of contemporary European high society produced during the peak of his career, which focused on the people and women's fashion of the Belle Époque and Victorian England, but he would also explore many medieval, biblical, and Japoniste subjects throughout his life. His career included work as a caricaturist for Vanity Fair under the pseudonym of Coïdé.[1]

Tissot served in the Franco-Prussian War on the side of France and later the Paris Commune. In 1871 he moved to London, where he found further success as an artist and began a relationship with Irishwoman Kathleen Newton, who lived with him as a close companion and muse until her death in 1882. Tissot maintained close relations with the Impressionist movement for much of his life, including James Abbott Whistler and friend and protégé Edgar Degas. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 1894.[2]

  1. ^ "Darwin Correspondence Project". The Darwin Project. University of Cambridge. 18 September 2022.
  2. ^ Matyjaszkiewicz, Krystyna (2011). "Tissot, Jacques Joseph (1836–1902)". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (online ed.). Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/68966. Retrieved 5 July 2014. (Subscription or UK public library membership required.)