Adrien Karbowsky

Adrien Karbowsky was born on 15 December 1855.[1] He was a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Lavastre, who decorated the Paris Opera, and of Justin Lequien.[2] Karbowski also studied under Pierre Puvis de Chavannes.[3] His Le bras Mignot, à Poissy was exhibited at the Salon of the Société des Artistes Français in 1881 in the Palais des Champs-Élysées, Paris.[2] On 1 May 1886 his Calendrier républicain was shown at the Salon.[4] At the Salon of 1889 he received an honorable mention.[5]

Karbowsky became a leading decorator in the Art Nouveau style. He collaborated with Frantz Jourdain and Puvis de Chavannes.[6] Karbowsky was made a knight of the Legion of Honour in 1902.[7] He became a member of the Société de l'Art à L'École, founded in 1906 with the aim of improving public taste by teaching public school students about art and decorating the schools.[8] A reviewer for American Art News wrote in February 1918,

Adrien Karbowsky shows, at the Petit Galleries also, a series of sketches of the heads of soldiers that are without distinctive merit, being for the most part wooden and characterless. But in the same room are 3 paintings of flowers by the same hand that are almost as wonderful, in delicacy of coloration and in truth of form, as Nature itself. One wonders how such an artist can be drawn away, even by the stern impressions of his life as a soldier at the front, from that vocation to excellent achievement which is incontestably his. I do not think that any French painter, now living, has better succeeded in the painting of flowers.[9]

In 1923 Karbowsky was among the 27 dissenting members of the board of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts who formed a new and more eclectic Salon with the encouragement of the Minister of Fine Arts. The plan was to exhibit paintings and sculptures ranging in style from the most conservative to the most advanced. The Salon would be held in springtime, at the peak season for visitors to Paris.[10]

Adrien Karbowsky died on 14 March 1945, aged 89.[1]

Karbowsky contributed decorative tapestry designs for the Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins.[11] He also designed tapestries for the Manufacture Nationale de Tapisseries de Beauvais.[12] He designed the decorative silk tapestries in pink for the Salon du Bois in the Museum of Decorative Arts, opened in 1900 in the Pavilion de Marsan of the Louvre Palace.[13] Murals include:

• 1893: Decorative murals in the Château de Verteuil, Charente, whose library Jourdain remodelled in 1893.[6]
• 1903–07: With Louis Jaulmes, murals for the Villa Kerylos in Cap-Ferrat, as directed by the Hellenic scholar Théodore Reinach, in mythological scenes often copied from Attic pottery.[14]
• 1909: Also with Jaulmes, decoration of the dining room of the exclusive Hôtel Royal in Évian-les-Bains.[15]
• Frescoes for the dining room of the Hôtel Lutétia in Paris and the Hôtel de Ville in Nogent-sur-Marne.[3]
• 1920s Decoration of the Domaine de Montaigu in Nancy in collaboration with the local architect Pierre le Bourgeon. The house had been purchased in 1920 by the Salin family, but had burned down. It was restored using new techniques such as reinforced concrete and a metal framework.[16]
• 1925: Stenciled paintings for La Maison Commune du Chemin Vert in Reims, a theater inaugurated in February 1925[17]
• Murals for the dining room of the Prince of Monaco.[7]

Armchair by Adrien Karbowsky, Paris 1912-13, Musée d'Orsay

• 1881: Salon des artistes français
• 1886: Salon of the Société des artistes français
• 1900: Exposition Universelle of Paris
• 1907: Salon La Nationale des beaux-arts : Mimosas et faïences
• 1910: Brussels International
• 1913: Salon de la Société nationale des beaux-arts : Musiciens
• 1923: Salon des Tuileries
• 1928: Galerie Ecalle, 3 Faubourg-Saint-Honoré à Paris
• 1945: Salon des Tuileries : Rétrospective de l'Œuvre d'Adrien Karbowsky