James Le Jeune

James George Le Jeune was born in Saskatoon, Canada on 24 May 1910.[1] He was the son of Anthony Le Jeune, a musician of English and French descent, and an Irish mother from Galway. His great uncle was the English Victorian artist/painter Henry Le Jeune.[2] When he was two, his family moved to St. Brieuc in Brittany where he attended a Christian Brothers School. He continued his education in a boarding school in Northampton, England.

During his career, Le Jeune used oil, water-colour, pencil to paint portraits, landscapes, and seascapes.[1] In the early 1930s, Le Jeune began training in art in Paris and later in London at Heatherley School of Fine Art and the Byam Shaw School of Art. He moved to the United States and attended the Art Students League in New York. Le Jeune also studied architecture at the Central London Polytechnic under Sir Giles Gilbert Scott.[2]

When World War II broke out, Le Jeune served in the British Army in Africa and Italy. Following the end of the war, he worked as an architect,[3] but he had not lost his interest in painting. In 1948, Le Jeune exhibited at the Royal Institute of Oil Painters, and at the New English Art Club.[4] In the same year he exhibited Fisherman's Regatta at the Society of Marine Artists.

In 1950, Le Jeune and his wife Pamela (née Mocatta) moved to Ireland to Delgany in County Wicklow where he designed and built his own home. He briefly practised as an architect but gave this up to paint full-time. The Le Jeunes had three daughters,[5] one of whom went on to be a self-taught artist.[6]

In 1951, aged 41, Le Jeune began exhibiting at The Royal Hibernian Academy and was a regular exhibitor there for the next 31 years until 1982. Le Jeune also exhibited two paintings in the Irish Exhibition of Living Art in 1951. In 1955 Le Jeune exhibited with the Society of Dublin Painters and with the Water Colour Society of Ireland for the first time. He returned to the Dublin Painters in 1956, and exhibited with the Water Colour Society of Ireland twice more, in 1956 and 1959. He showed works in the Oireachtas Exhibitions of 1961 and 1963.[7]

His first one-man show was at the Victor Waddington Galleries in 1954.[2] In 1956 he had an exhibition in the Little Theatre, Brown Thomas. Commenting on his Brown Thomas exhibit, The Dublin Magazine noted: "This artist's palette in landscape is inclined to be over-sombre; in his portraits on the other hand, his low tones give depth and background, and his subjects are almost startling in their truth and reality – seen with a touch of humour which stops short of caricature."[2][8] Le Jeune returned to the same venue for a solo exhibition in the following year, when the art critic for the Dublin Evening Mail proclaimed that the exhibition "establishes this artist as one of the finest portrait painters in this country."[9]

In 1960, Le Jeune moved to his studio at 38 Baggot Lane in Dublin, Ireland, where he lived and worked until his death in 1983. Jimmy, as he was known locally, was a regular visitor at Searsons pub[10][11] and The Waterloo on Baggot Street. A year after he opened his Dublin studio, Le Jeune was appointed an associate of the Royal Hibernian Academy (RHA).[2][3] From 1961 to 1972, he served as a member and became a full RHA member in 1973. During the late 1960s, Le Jeune opened an art studio in New York and divided his time for some years painting between the two cities.

Le Jeune died in Blackrock, County Dublin on 29th January 1983.[2] Writing for the Irish Independent twenty-five years later in 2008, journalist Con Houlihan, commented on his friend,

"James was what you might call a painters' painter: he was greatly respected by his fellows but not as well known to the public. He had the invaluable gift of being able to laugh at himself. He was a brilliant catcher in the wry."[10]

In March 1996, Le Jeune's Children Playing on a Beach painting sold for GB£8,700.[12] In October of that same year, Le Jeune's Children Paddling Near Dalkey painting sold for GB£3,100 and his The Final/ Furlong painting sold for GB£2,450.[13] Two months later, his Children Playing in a Garden painting sold for GB£8,000 and his Children on a Beach painting went for GB£6,200.[14]

In December 2003, Le Jeune's At The Races – Longchamps painting sold for €12,000.[15] In 2008, his the Perfect Storm – Waves Off Brittainy Coast sold for US$51,764.[16]

Examples of his work can be found in Newport Art Gallery,[17] The National Gallery of Ireland, The National Self Portrait Collection of Ireland at the University of Limerick, The Abbey Theatre Dublin, Crawford Municipal Art Gallery Cork, McKee Barracks, Kings Inns, and The United Arts Club.

• artnet.com, thumbnail images of James Le Jeune artwork on artnet.
• "NSPCI J Files by last name beginning with "J"", National Self Portrait Collection, University of Limerick Visual Arts Office, retrieved 18 November 2013, oil on canvas self portrait of James le Jeune (1910-1984) in the National Self Portrait Collection at the University of Limerick.