A famous French and American flower painter, Paul DeLongpre was the most significant watercolor specialist to arrive in Los Angeles in the late 19th century and became the city's first major still-life painter. It is likely he was the first southern California painter to earn a major national reputation.

He was born in Lyons, France, where he was a member of the artistocratic, although not wealthy, Maucherat de Longpre family. Growing up in Lyon, noted for many flower painters because it was the center of the textile-design industry, he was exposed to that subject matter from his youth. At age twelve, he was in Paris, using his obvious talent to paint flowers on fans. By age 21, he had a painting accepted at the Paris Salon. He studied in Paris at the Ecole des Beaux Arts with Jean Leon Gerome and Leon Bonnat and became well known in France, especially with a successful exhibition at the American Art Galleries.

In 1890, he brought his family to New York City where they lived until 1899. There he had a successful career in commercial illustration as a window decorator and also did much painting in the New Jersey countryside as well. In 1896, he had his first New York exhibition, all floral subjects, and it was very well received. Many of the pieces from this exhibition were reproduced as lithographs and distributed across the United States.

At the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago, he met many of the country's prominent artists, which led to his being invited to exhibit in Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, and Los Angeles.

In 1899, he moved his family to Southern California because he was so impressed by the floral landscapes and flowers he saw. He paid only ten dollars for a huge lot at Cahuenga and Hollywood Boulevard, now part of downtown Hollywood. He built an extravagant Moorish style mansion surrounded by a three-acre lot on which he grew four-thousand rose bushes. This site became the first tourist attraction in Hollywood, (more thatn 25,000 people annually), and from the gardens, he found many floral still life subjects. The combination of his unique life-style and obvious talent brought him celebrity status, and his name lives on geographically as De Longpre Avenue, named for him, runs parallel to Sunset Boulevard.

He continued to send work back to New York for exhibition at galleries including M. Knoedler and Co. Known for his energy, he was highly prolific, also publishing many chromolithographic prints. He worked tirelessly for a National Art Gallery, and taught watercolor workshops. He died at age fifty-six from what many thought was overwork.

He has become the subject of a major retrospective at The Irvine Museum in California. He was also a talented musician and between 1891 and 1907, completed sixteen compositions.

Source:
Michael David Zellman, "300 Years of American Art"
Edan Hughes, "Artists in California, 1786-1940"
Gordon McClellan and Jay Last, "California Watercolors, 1850-1970"

Paul de Longpre was born in Lyon, France in 1855 to the Maucherat de Longpre family. The textile-design industry was an important commercial sector in Lyon, and there were numerous artists known for their skills at painting flowers. He was certainly exposed to their works as a child, and was likely inspired by the subject matter as he began drawing floral images at a very young age. By the age of 12, de Longpre was earning an income painting flowers on fans for a Parisian firm.

He became a student in Paris at the respected Ecole des Beaux Arts and his paintings were becoming more popular and were enjoyed by a larger audience. His early success continued with acceptance of a painting by the Paris Salon. De Longpre was a well known artist in Paris when he moved to New York in 1890.

His artistic skills continued to develop during this period while he worked as a commercial illustrator and created plein-air paintings in the surrounding non-urban areas. He was also considered to be a talented musician, composing sixteen works between 1891 and 1907. His artistic career continued to grow and his works were praised by the public at his first New York exhibition in 1896. He began to reproduce his most popular works as lithographs, which reached a broader audience and increased his fame and celebrity. Large numbers of these prints survive today.

Attracted by the beauty of the landscape and the variety of flowers in Southern California, de Longpre and his family moved to Los Angeles in 1898. By this point in his career, he was a relatively wealthy man and was able to build an extravagant home there at Cahuenga and Hollywood Boulevard. The large estate included tended gardens that became a tourist attraction, drawing some 25,000 visitors each year. Painting floral scenes almost exclusively with watercolors, de Longpre found inspiration in the 4,000 rose bushes he had on his estate. His fame increased and a street was even named after him, De Longpre Avenue in Hollywood.

He was an industrious and very active artist throughout this period of his career as he continued to produce chromolithographic prints and taught students the nuances of watercolor painting. He died at the relatively young age of fifty-six, famous and popular, and is remembered to this day as “The King of Flower Painters”.