Identity:

Joseph-Félix Bouchor was an illustrator and genre, portrait and landscape painter.

Life:

Bouchor was a pupil of Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and Jules Lefebvre. He painted countryside, village and harbour scenes in Barbizon, Brittany and Holland. He also painted on his travels to Egypt, Algeria, Morocco and Italy. Like JW he was drawn particularly to Venice. He was friendly with Matrose and André Gill.

Bouchor was tenant of the studio of the artist Antonio de la Gandara at 22 rue Monsieur-le-Prince in Paris. During Bouchor's absence from mid January to early February 1892, Comte Robert de Montesquiou arranged that JW should borrow part of the studio. It was there that JW painted Arrangement in Black and Gold: Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac (YMSM 398). JW and Bouchor were in correspondence during 1891-1892 concerning this arrangement.

He was a member of the Societé Internationale de Peinture et Sculpture, Paris, when JW was an Honorary Member in 1901 (see #05498).

Bibliography:

Bénézit, E., Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, 8 vols, Paris, 1956-61; Young, Andrew McLaren, Margaret F. MacDonald, Robin Spencer and Hamish Miles, The Paintings of James McNeill Whistler, New Haven and London, 1980.