Honoré Daumier

Honoré-Victorin Daumier (French: [ɔnɔʁe domje]; 26 February 1808 – 10 or 11 February 1879) was a French painter, sculptor, and printmaker, whose many works offer commentary on the social and political life in France, from the Revolution of 1830 to the fall of the Second French Empire in 1870. He earned a living producing caricatures and cartoons in newspapers and periodicals such as La Caricature and Le Charivari, for which he became well known in his lifetime and is still remembered today. He was a republican democrat (working class liberal), who satirized and lampooned the monarchy, aristocracy, clergy, politicians, the judiciary, lawyers, police, detectives, the wealthy, the military, the bourgeoisie, as well as his countrymen and human nature in general.

Daumier was a serious painter, loosely associated with realism, sometimes blurring the boundaries between caricature and fine art. Although he occasionally exhibited at the Parisian Salon, his paintings were largely overlooked and ignored by the French public and critics of the day. Yet Daumier's fellow painters, as well as the poet and art critic Charles Baudelaire, noticed and greatly admired his work. Later generations would recognize Daumier as one of the great French artists of the 19th century, profoundly influencing a younger generation of impressionist and postimpressionist painters. Daumier was a tireless and prolific artist and produced more than 100 sculptures, 500 paintings, 1,000 drawings, 1,000 wood engravings, and 4,000 lithographs.