Paul-Albert Besnard (1849-1934) Portrait de jeune, 1908, crayon on cardboard, cm. 56.5 x 45.5, signed, dated and dedicated top left.

Expositions
"L'altro volto dell'artista" Galleria d'arte Due Bi, (Bergamo, Italy, 10.04 - 08.05.1999)

Museums displays works of Albert Besnard
Bruxelles; Digione; Douai; Dusseldorf; Nantes; Paris (Louvre)

Albert Besnard was an impressionist painter, a master of his trade and had a good command of painting in watercolors, pastels, and oil, as well as etching. He found his motifs both in portrait painting and in landscape painting. Besnard also decorated numerous Parisian buildings, including the dome of the Petit Palais. In 1913, Besnard was appointed to be the director of Villa Medici in Rome; in 1922, he became the director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. In 1924, he became the first painter since 1760 to be elected as a member of the Académie Française, one of the oldest and most prestigious institutions of the French intellectual world.