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| Self Portrait - 1890 |
Henri Rousseau was born in Laval, Mayenne, France, in 1844. He was part of a tinsmith family and was forced to work in their tinsmith company.
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| Landscape With Bridge - 1877 |
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| War Of Ride - 1894 |
But soon he had to pay to live at his parents home because the tinsmith business got into debt. Their house was finally confiscated due to those debts. Henri attended Laval High School where he earned prizes for drawing and music.
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| Outskirts Of Paris - 1896 |
After school he studied law and worked for a lawyer. When he committed perjury, he fled to the army where he served 4 years. In 1868 he moved to Paris after the death of his father to support his mother and worked as a government employee. In 1868 he married Clémence Boitard with whom he had six children and painted besides collecting taxes and goods for the government. Although the painted lots of jungles and tropical landscapes he never traveled abroad. Therefore the inspiration came from the Natural History Museum and the botanical gardens in Paris. He exhibited regularly in the Salon des indépendants. Following Boitard's death in 1888 he married his second wife Josephine Noury in 1898.
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| Tiger In A Tropical Storm (Surprised!) - 1891 |
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| The Sleeping Gypsy - 1897 |
His work was initially not shown at the well-known galleries, but he did gain more and more followers. "Tiger in a Tropical Storm (Surprised!)" was exhibited in 1891 and received his first serious review by artist Félix Vallotton. 1893 he moved to his studio in Montparnasse where he worked and lived until his death in 1910. In 1897 he produced his most famous painting: "The Sleeping Gypsy". Another great work was exhibited in 1905 at the Salon des indépendants titled "The Hungry Lion Throws Itself on the Antelope" besides work from Henri Matisse. This was the first time the The Fauves (Fauvism) were introduced and probably the name of the style was influenced by this painting of Rousseau.
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| Let Petit Journal N°884 - 1907 |
When Henri retired in 1893 he did some part-time jobs because his pension was not enough to live on. For example he produced some covers for the daily Parisian newspaper: Le Petit Journal.
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| The Snake Charmer - 1907 |
In 1907 he was commissioned by artist Robert Delaunay's mother, Berthe, Comtesse de Delaunay, to paint "The Snake Charmer". Pablo Picasso was impressed by Rousseau's work and met him.
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| Tropical Forest With Monkeys - 1910 |
In the last months of his life he painted "Tropical Forest with Monkeys". Many of the animals in Rousseau's images have human faces or attributes. Rousseau exhibited his final painting "The Dream" in March 1910 at the Salon des Independants. He contracted a contagious infection and got a dead leg. He finally died of a thrombosis in Paris.
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| The Dream - 1910 |
