JACQUES-EMILE BLANCHE

Jacques-Émile Blanche began his lifelong love affair with England when, as a small boy in 1870, he was sent from Paris to London to avoid the bombs of the Franco-Prussian War. During his year in London, Blanche learned the language and became a committed Anglophile. In 1905 Blanche returned to London, living in Knightsbridge through the autumn and winter, realizing that with his numerous aristocratic and artistic contacts, such as John Singer Sargent and Walter Sickert, he could work comfortably as an artist, painting commissions and exhibiting regularly at the New English Art Club (NEAC) and other fashionable venues. Before Christmas, while residing with his wife at the Hyde Park Hotel overlooking the park, Blanche found a charming studio in William Street, which he moved into at the beginning of January 1906.  Thereafter he divided his life between France and England until the First World War.  Cadogan Place, Belgravia, London is a charming view of what was to become "his" neighborhood and one of many he painted to satisfy his many clients at the NEAC. Blanche painted well-known sites of the capital but also Belgrave Square, Sloane Street, Hyde Park and Knightsbridge which were not yet considered as central London at the time