Jean (1849) Béraud

(b 1849; d 1939) Jean Béraud began his career as a portrait painter but his focus soon shifted to daily life in the city of Paris. Working during the Belle Epoque, Paris had become a rich display of people gathering on the boulevards and at cafes, or strolling through the parks. Béraud, whose entire career was devoted to the realistic depiction of life in the French capital, did not shirk from painting the less than savory aspects of Parisian life, even working from a taxicab to capture the activity on the street. He certainly frequented the same cafés and other, perhaps less reputable establishments as his friends Manet, Degas and Toulouse-Lautrec. Though he exhibited numerous times at the Salon in Paris, Béraud and several other artists formed a rival organization called the Societie National de Beaux-Arts which held their own exhibitions beginning in 1890. Toward the end of his life he was plagued by illness and his paintings lost their characteristic vibrancy. He died in Paris in 1934 and is buried in the Montparnasse cemetery.