Timeline

René Ménard inherited a love of classical antiquity from his father, an art historian and editor of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, as well as his uncle Louis, a philosopher and author of such works as the Polythéisme hellenique and Reverie d’un paien mystique. He was a pupil of William Adolphe Bouguereau and Paul Baudry, and also took classes at the Académie Julian from 1880. Ménard first exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1883, and later at the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts. His earliest paintings were of Biblical subjects and scenes from antiquity, but his mature works tended towards lyrical or pastoral scenes, inspired by the Antique but without any specific reference to classical subject matter. He gained further inspiration during a trip to Greece, Palestine and Southern Italy in 1897, visiting classical monuments and sites that would often reappear in his work. Around the turn of the century, Ménard became associated with a group of artists, headed by Charles Cottet, who called themselves La Bande Noire. The work of these artists was a reaction against the brighter palette of the Impressionists, and derived from a preference for dark tonalities and an interest in melancholic subjects. Ménard was also active as a mural painter, decorating the …cole des Hauts …tudes at the Sorbonne in 1906. A member of the Société des Pastellistes FranÁais, alongside such artists as Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer, Albert Besnard, Henri Le Sidaner, Pascal Dagnan-Bouveret and Edmond Aman-Jean, Ménard found the pastel medium ideal for depicting the twilight landscapes that were a staple of his output. He enjoyed one-man exhibitions at the Galerie Georges Petit in 1914, 1925 and 1928. Ménard also developed a modest reputation in America, where from 1909 onwards he exhibited at the Annual International Art Exhibition at the Carnegie Institute in Pittsburgh. In 1920 a group of some twenty paintings were shown at the Carnegie exhibition, many of which were exhibited later the same year at the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York.