Henri Thiriet

Henri Thiriet is known for his Art Nouveau posters, which used bold curves, swirling forms, and a colourful palette. He produced commercial posters for brands including Omega Cycles, Dayton Cycles, and Griffiths bicycles, as well as advertising work for Absinthe Berthelot, the Belle Jardiniere department store, and Peugeot sewing machines.

Henri Thiriet (1873-1946) was a French artist known for his illustrations and printmaking. He studied with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Gabriel Ferrier. Thiriet exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français, winning a bronze medal in 1900 and a gold medal in 1901. Thiriet produced a variety of prints, including colour lithographs and etchings. Many of his prints were created as illustrations for books and magazines. He is recognised for his depictions of women, often in fashionable attire or domestic settings. His style blends academic training with elements of Art Nouveau. His work includes posters, book illustrations, and decorative panels. Thiriet's prints capture the aesthetic sensibilities of the early 20th century. They offer a glimpse into French society and design during this era. Collectors value his prints for their artistic quality and historical context.

Information about Henri Thiriet's techniques and materials is not available in the reference passages. However, the passages do discuss the materials and techniques of Jean Dubuffet and Pierre Bonnard. Dubuffet combined unusual elements with paint, including cement, tar, gravel, leaves, silver foil, dust, and butterfly wings. He believed art should originate from the materials themselves. His technique involved laying canvas on the floor and covering it with a thick paste of light-coloured oil paint, applied with a spatula. He then sprinkled ashes, sand, and coal dust over the surface. Colour was added as a thin mixture brushed over the surface. The surface was covered with thick black paint, and the image was created by rubbing materials into the surface and incising contours with a blunt point. Bonnard did not paint directly from life, using memory and preliminary drawings. He used a finely-grained canvas with a white ground. Some areas were built up in thin layers, while others used thicker layers with brushwork and impasto. He sometimes added finishing touches after the painting was stretched and framed.

While a comprehensive list of Henri Thiriet's works and their locations is not readily available, several museums hold collections of nineteenth- and twentieth-century French art that may include his pieces. In France, these include the Musée du Louvre, Musée d’Orsay, Musée National d’Art Moderne (Centre Georges Pompidou), Musée des Arts Decoratifs (all in Paris), Musée des Beaux-Arts (Nancy), and Musée des Beaux-Arts (Nantes). Other European museums include the Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts de Belgique (Brussels). In the United States, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York), the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond) may hold his work. Checking the collections catalogues of these museums would be a useful way to locate and view Thiriet's art.

Without more specific information, it's difficult to pinpoint Henri Thiriet's exact origins. However, several facts point to France. One passage mentions a man named G. Troisoeufs, a manager at the Oriental Hotel in Bangkok, Siam (now Thailand), who offered bronze Buddhas to France, referring to it as "my homeland". Another passage mentions H. Fauré of 2 rue Française in Paris, who proposed an old book with hand-coloured engravings to Guimet, a collector. Fauré's letterhead identified him as being in the cheese business, "Fromageries Bailleux Adrien. Desoutter frères et H. Fauré, neveux, successeurs". These instances suggest a connection between France and individuals involved in art and commerce. While not directly related to Henri Thiriet, they illustrate the cultural and economic context of the time, potentially indicating a French background for artists like him. Further research into Thiriet's biography and artistic career might reveal more specific details about his place of origin.

It is difficult to say with certainty who Henri Thiriet influenced. However, the work of Vincent van Gogh had an impact on a number of artists. After Henri Matisse saw Van Gogh's work in Paris in 1901, he changed his style. He brightened his palette, exaggerated forms, distorted his subjects, and used expressive marks and heavy lines to convey emotion. Van Gogh also inspired Wassily Kandinsky and Franz Marc; along with others in Munich, they started the Expressionist group Der Blaue Reiter (The Blue Rider). Edvard Munch, a contemporary of Van Gogh, was also affected by Van Gogh's 'passion' and 'fire of the soul'. Since his death, artists and the public have been motivated by Van Gogh's unique style.

It is difficult to say with certainty who influenced Henri Thiriet, as source material on him is scarce. However, it is possible to discuss some of the influences on artists of his era. The artist Henri Matisse had a considerable effect on many artists, both European and American. Some artists admired Matisse's surface-oriented figurative work, using it to bypass abstract expressionism. Matisse's work also led Patrick Henry Bruce and Arthur Burdett Frost, Jr, toward abstraction and the use of pure colour. Morris Louis combined the joyousness of Matisse's work with classical elements. Diebenkorn's art of "surfaces and of light" has been compared to Matisse's work during his Cubism-exploring years. Some members of the "Support/surface" group were also influenced by Matisse and American colour-field painters.

The importance of Henri Thiriet's work lies in the complex web of interactions between objects, people, and institutions within the art world. These networks include sponsors, engravers, copyists, curators, art historians, journalists, lawyers, political figures, auctioneers, gallery owners, collectors, museums, and scientific analysis laboratories. These individuals and entities, operating across different countries, cooperate, compete, and exert influence over one another. The journey of artworks reveals these connections, demonstrating how meaning, status, and price are affected. Scholarly interest in contemporary art has seen periods of recognition and neglect. The canon that evolved in Euro-America in the early decades of the twentieth century triggered the West’s aesthetic interest in art. However, it also created a binary logic (art versus craft, modern versus traditional, autonomous versus functional, etc.) that resisted fundamental change.

Henri Thiriet's art style was Art Nouveau. His posters used bold curves, swirling forms, and a colourful palette characteristic of the Belle Epoque advertising tradition.

Henri Thiriet was born in 1873 in France. Henri Thiriet died in 1946, aged 73.

Henri Thiriet died in 1946 at the age of 73.