Gaston La Touche artwork • watercolour • drawing • previously for sale Seated ballerina

Gaston La Touche made his debut in 1875 at the Paris Salon as a sculptor, but soon concentrated on painting. Besides a few drawing and painting lessons in his youth, La Touche was self-taught. His contacts with the Parisian impressionists in the seventies stimulated his artistic development. Stylistically and thematically, however, he chose not for impressionism, but for naturalism. His contact with Félix Bracquemont, however, caused a radical change in subject and style around 1890: La Touche left realism for a dreamy idealism. In a warm, harmonious palette and soft touch, he painted idyllic representations of young women in parks, gardens and richly decorated interiors, often also allegorical or mythological subjects.