Eugène Carrière was born in Gournay, France, in 1849. He attended the municipal drawing school in Strasbourg’s Palais de Rohan until 1864, and subsequently began training as a lithographer. In 1870 he moved to Paris in order to study painting at the École des Beaux-Arts. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 to 1871 Carrière was taken a prisoner of war and transported to Dresden, where he was allowed to visit the art collections. After his return he became a pupil of one of the leading academic painters, Alexandre Cabanel, and subsequently designed decors at the porcelain manufactory in Sèvres. There he came to know Auguste Rodin. Together with Rodin, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes and Félix Bracquemond, he founded the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890. In 1898 he opened the École Carrière. Henri Matisse was one of his numerous pupils. Carrière showed his work at the Vienna Secession and elsewhere, and undertook journeys to Rome, Florence and Venice. In 1904 a great banquet was held in his honour, presided over by Auguste Rodin. Among the 500 guests were Matisse and Redon. Eugène Carrière died in Paris in 1906.
