Alexis Jean Fournier [1865-1948]
American Arts and Crafts / Impressionist Painter
The Walk Home, ca.1895
Oil on canvas
19 x 28-1/2 inches
BIOGRAPHY
Alexis Jean Fournier is an American-born Arts and Crafts and Impressionist painter. He was the chosen painter of the Roycroft group—the Arts and Crafts movement in America—and its leader Elbert Hubbard [1856-1915].
Fournier grew up in Wisconsin. He moved to Minneapolis at age fourteen to become a sign painter. He sought formal training at the Minneapolis School of Art under Douglas Volk [1856-1935] and later in 1893 at the Academie Julian in Paris.
In 1891, Fournier traveled to the American Southwest with patron H. Jay Smith to make a study of the landscape to paint a 50 foot mural for the Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.
Fournier would travel to Paris several more times between 1895 and 1901. He would spend time after 1903 in East Aurora, NY at the Roycroft community.
He is known to have painted along the Mississippi River, in Minneapolis, in Brown County as part of the Brown County Impressionist painters of Indiana and in East Aurora, near Buffalo, NY in association with the Roycroft colony.
In 1948, Fournier died from injuries sustained from slipping on an icy sidewalk.
COLLECTIONS
– Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis MN
– Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul MN
– Minnesota Museum of American Art, St Paul MN
– Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN
SOURCES
– “In the Mainstream: The Art of Alexis Jean Fournier” by Rena Neumann Coen, 1985.
– “Minnesota Impressionists” by Rena Neumann Coen, 1996.
– “American Impressionism” by William H. Gerdts, 1984.
– “Minnesota 1900: Art and Life on the Upper Mississippi 1890-1915” edited by Michael Conforti, 1994.
– “Roycroft’s Court Painter and His Photo Secessionist Son” by Ann Haselbauer, Style 8, number 1, February, 1995, pages 31–33.
– “Who Was Who in American Art” by Peter Falk
– “Alexis Jean Fournier: A Barbizon in East Aurora”, by Burchfield Center, Western New York Forum for American Art, State University College at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 1979.
– “Alexis Jean Fournier, the Last American Barbizon” by Rena Neumann Coen, Minnesota Historical Society Press, St. Paul, MN, 1985.
– “The Cliff Dwellers” by Jay H. Smith, Chicago, IL, World’s Columbian Exposition, 1893.