Flameng exhibited at the Paris Salon from 1873 with such paintings including Les bords de la Seine and Pont du Meudon. Recognition was soon to follow with numerous honors including a Second Class Medal in 1879, the Prix du Salon, and Gold Medal in 1899. At the Universal Exhibition in 1899 he was awarded France’s highest civilian honor the Legion d’Honneur. He was also a member of the Institute of French Painters. In 1905 he became a Professor of Art at the l’Ecole des Beaux-Arts and was also a member of the Committee of French Artists. He decorated such important civic buildings as the Sorbonne and the Opera Comique. Flameng later received renown for his painting of World War I. He was named honorary president of the Society of Military Painters and an accredited documenter for the War Ministry. His work was displayed in the Hotel des Invalides in Paris, as well as being reproduced in news magazines.
Among his noted friends were John Singer Sargent, who painted his portrait, and he also traveled with Jean Leon Gerome and Victor Clairin in Italy, and tutored Paul-Emile Becat.
Much of his best work portrayed the performers and frequenters of the circus, Moulin Rouge and other Café Societe haunts. He made use of Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist’s ways of using color. Flameng was the interpreter par-excellence of the Parisian world which was the main inspiration of his paintings. His bold use of color was superb, creating wonderful effects of light which only the most accomplished hand could achieve.
Museums or Galleries displaying his work include the Art Moderne, Paris; Beaux-Arts Ville De Paris; Collection Comedie Francaise; Rouen, Beaune and Liege in France; the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, Russia; The Royal Collection in London, England; and the Currier Gallery of Art in New Hampshire, Harvard University Art Museum in Massachusetts, and the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington D.C., USA.
Source:
“Francois Flameng”, Select Fine Art, //www.selectfineart.org/impressionist.html
