Le vieillard
Léon Pourtau · 1894
Léon Pourtau
France · 1868–1898
Léon Pourtau was a French painter and musician. At the age of 15, an apprentice typesetter, Pourtau left Bordeaux for Paris. He worked in a small restaurant on the Rue Lafayette, where musicians gathered Orchestre Lamoureux. Thanks to them Pourtau got a job as a concert clarinetist in a Café-chantant. He toured with a circus band where he would help set up the tent and bathe the elephants.
Known works
Le vieillard
Léon Pourtau · 1894
Museo Soumaya
Le vieillard (The old man) is an 1894 painting by Léon Pourtau in the collection of the Museo Soumaya, Mexico City. This work represents an old man in a deserted French street, during a curfew of Prussian occupation. The man walks with crutches, probably with a physical wound.
Sources
Invite Léon Pourtau into your living room
