Jean Henri ZUBER
Rixheim 1844 - Paris 1909
Biography
Born in Alsace, Jean Henri Zuber spent most of the 1860’s serving in the French navy, mostly in the Pacific, and it was during this time that he began producing watercolour sketches. When he left the navy in 1868, he entered the atelier of Charles Gleyre, and began to establish a career as an artist. In 1869 he exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français for the first time, and, apart from 1871 and 1872, showed there every year thereafter until his death in 1909. Working from a studio on the rue de Vaugirard in Paris, Zuber came to specialize in views of the city – in both oil and watercolour – as well as scenes elsewhere in France. He exhibited at the Salons from 1869 onwards, and from 1884 also showed with the Société des Aquarellistes Français. In 1889 he won a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle, and during the 1890’s made several visits to London and the South of France. He would sometimes go on sketching tours in the company of his fellow painter Paul Lecomte, and would spend each summer in the town of Ferrette in Alsace. In 1910, the year after his death, a large retrospective exhibition of Zuber’s work was mounted at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Works by the artist are today in the Louvre and the Musée d’Orsay, as well as in many provincial museums in France.
