Achille Laugé

Achille Laugé was born in Arzens, France in 1861. He began his artistic training at the École des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse where he met the sculptor Antoine Bourdelle who would become his lifelong friend. In fact, a pencil portrait of Bourdelle was his first exhibited work shown at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1884. He later enrolled in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1882. Following this, he enrolled in the studio of Alexandre Cabanel where he met and befriended the sculptor Aristide Maillol with whom he later shared a studio. In 1884, he returned to the South of France where he would remain for the rest of his career.

Laugé's early pointillist technique seems to echo the Divisionist style of Georges Seurat though many claim he developed his style without any knowledge of Seurat's works. It is unlikely that he would not have encountered the work of the Neo-Impressionists at this time as they were prominently on display at the Salon des Indépendants of 1886. Once Laugé left Paris, however, his Divisionist technique cannot be said to mimic that of the Neo-Impressionists and takes on a form all of its own. By 1905, his compositions were comprised of much larger dots of colour executed with rapid loose brushstrokes.

Laugé rarely exhibited. Notably, however, in 1894 he did send five paintings - two still lives and three portraits - to the Salon des Indépendants and was included in a group exhibition in Toulouse with Bonnard, Denis, Valloton, Vuillard, Toulouse-Lautrec, Serusier and others. One of his only commissions came from Gustave Geffroy to produce several designs for tapestries to be produced by the Gobelins Factory between 1914 and 1919. Due to the lack of public display of his works they remained largely unknown to scholars, critics and collectors of his time.

Laugé's works now hang in the Musée National d'Art Moderne alongside Neo-Impressionist works by Seurat and Signac. Over eighteen of his works can be found at the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Carcassonne given to the museum in the 1970's by the artist's daughter Juliette.

Laugé died in 1944 in Cailhu, France.