Overview
Léon-Augustin L'Hermitte purportedly began working in pastels in 1885, the year before his first exhibition at the Société des Pastellistes Français. There at the Georges Petit Gallery in Paris he exhibited twelve pastels which portrayed daily peasant life around his birthplace of Mont-Saint- Père. This exhibition would establish L'Hermitte as one of the foremost proponents of works executed in pastel. In fact he helped to found the pastellistes and would go on to mentor younger artists in this medium. Van Gogh once referred to Lhermitte as "Millet the Second" and wrote of him in the following passage:
"…if every month "Le Monde Illustré" published one of his compositions…it would be a great pleasure for me to be able to follow it. It is certain that for years I have not seen anything as beautiful as this scene by Lhermitte…I am too preoccupied by Lhermitte this evening to be able to talk of other things."
—Van Gogh
L'Hermitte's use of pastels helped to usher in and reinforce the growing acceptance of the use of pastels in art in France.
Exhibitions
Salon, Paris, 1864-1889; 1874 (3rd Classe Medal)
Dudley Gallery, 1873
Exposition Nationale, 1883
Metropolitan Museum, New York, 1884
Museums and Public Collections
Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, British Columbia
Art Gallery, Ontario
Art Institute of Chicago
Arthur Ross Gallery at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Bowes Museum, County Durham, UK
Brooklyn Museum, New York City
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
Chi-Mei Museum, Taiwan
Cleveland Museum of Art, Ohio
Dahesh Museum, New York City
Denver Museum of Art, CO
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan
Frye Art Museum, Seattle
Goteborg Art Gallery, Sweden
John G. Johnson Collection, Philadelphia
Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia
Hood Museum of Art, New Hampshire
Indianapolis Museum of Art, Indiana
Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, Laurel, Mississippi
Manchester City Art Gallery, UK
Marion Koogler McNay Art Institute, San Antonio
Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester, New York
Melton Park Gallery, Oklahoma City
Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, NY
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis, Missouri
Municipal Gallery of Modern Art, Dublin
Musée d'Orsay, Paris
Museum of Fine Art, Saintes, France
Museum of Fine Arts, BostonÂ
National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C.
National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo
Oklahoma City Art Museum, OK
Paine Art Center, Oshkosh, WI
Philadelphia Museum of Art
Reading Public Museum, Pennsylvania
Réunion des Musées Nationaux, France
Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri
Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, Massachusetts
Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid
Toledo Museum of Art, OH
Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam
Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis, MO