Achille Laugé French, 1861-1944

Achille Laugé was a French painter associated with Neo-Impressionism and the Divisionist method, who worked for most of his life in the Aude, in the south of France. He painted landscapes, portraits and floral still lifes, building each picture from small, separate touches of unmixed colour. Born in the same year as the sculptors Antoine Bourdelle and Aristide Maillol, both of whom became close friends, Laugé developed his work apart from the Paris art world, in the countryside around Carcassonne and along the Mediterranean coast. At his parents' wish he trained as a pharmacist in Toulouse, but he also enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts there, where he met Bourdelle. In 1881 he was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, entering the studio of Alexandre Cabanel and Jean-Paul Laurens, and it was in Paris that he met Maillol, with whom he shared lodgings. He completed his military service in the capital before leaving Paris in 1888. From 1889 he kept a studio in Carcassonne, and he later settled at Cailhau, where he had married in 1891 and where he would spend much of his working life. He died at Cailhau in 1944, two years after his wife and in the same year as Maillol. By the time he left Paris, Laugé had taken up the Divisionist touch of the Neo-Impressionists, and he held to it, more or less closely, throughout his career. He worked under the influence of Georges Seurat, Paul Signac and Camille Pissarro, applying short strokes and points of pure colour rather than mixing tones on the palette. From 1905 he obtained a studio-caravan so that he could paint directly from the motif, out of doors. His handling broadened over time, the strokes growing larger and more loosely placed while keeping the divided colour that gave his pictures their particular light. Laugé spent periods working away from Cailhau: from 1916 he had a base at Alet, in the Aude, and from 1926 he passed the summer months at Collioure on the coast. From 1932 he kept a studio in Paris, next door to Bourdelle. In 1913 and again in 1926 he produced tapestry designs to commission for the Gobelins manufactory.