Olga's Gallery

Alfred Sisley at Artprice. To look at auction records, find Sisley's works in upcoming auctions, check price levels and indexes for his works, read his biography and view his signature, access the Artprice database.             Alfred Sisley was born in Paris on 30th October 1839 into the family of a well-to-do English businessman William Sisley (1799-1879), see his portrait by Renoir. Between 1857 and 1861 he lived in London, preparing for a career in commerce. In 1862, having decided to become a painter, he entered the Atelier Gleyre in Paris and there met Monet, Renoir and Bazille. The friends often worked together in the open air in the Forest of Fontainebleau, in the suburbs of Paris.
            Sisley first sent his paintings to the Paris Salon in 1866 and subsequently exhibited there in 1868 and 1870. During Franco-Prussian War Sisley lost all his possessions when the Prussian army overran the family’s estate in Bougival, west of Paris. After the war his father was ruined, so the artist was left in desperate poverty for many years. Until 1880, he lived and worked in the countryside west of Paris, around Marly and Louveciennes, especially at Villeneuve-la-Garenne, Bougival and Port-Marly. The flood of 1876 at Port-Marly became the subject of a large series of his landscapes: Flood at Port-Marly (1876), Boat in the Flood at Port-Marly (1876), Flood at Port-Marly (1876). From 1880, onwards he painted almost exclusively landscapes depicting the banks of the Seine and the Loing at Saint-Mammès and Sablon and Moret-sur-Loing, the town where he lived from 1889 until his death. The Canal du Loing at St. Mammes (1885). Matrat's Boatyard, Moret-sur-Loing (1883), Moret-sur-Loing (1891), Courtyard of Farm at St. Mammes (1884).
            Sisley did not live to see his talent recognized. He had contributed to the Impressionist exhibitions of 1874, 1876, 1877 and 1882, and also exhibited at the Durand-Ruel galleries in Paris and New York. Every year, starting from 1892, his paintings were on show at the Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts; several of his works were displayed by Georges Petit at international exhibitions. All this, however, brought him neither fame nor financial security. The failure of his retrospective exhibition at Georges Petit’s in 1897, to which he had been looking forward and for which he had selected his best pictures, was an especially hard blow to the artist. Backed by one of his patrons, Francois Depeau, a Rouen manufacturer, Sisley left for the south of England. From May to October 1897 he stayed at Penarth, a seaside resort near Cardiff, and painted views of rocky seashores: Bristol Channel from Penarth, Evening. (1897). The same year he married Marie Louise Adélaïde Eugéne Lescouezec (1834-1898), who gave birth to his two children: son Pierre (1867) and daughter Jeanne (1869). On January 29, 1899 the artist died in his home in Moret.

Still Life with Heron. This beautiful painting is one of only a handful of still lifes (nine are recorded) made by Sisley. It was painted in Frederic Bazille’s studio in Paris. Bazille working on the same subject (The Heron, Musee Fabre, Montpellier) was painted by Renoir (Frédéric Bazille at His Easel, Musee d’Orsay), the three pictures recording the close working friendship of the three painters.
See: Alfred Sisley. Still Life with Heron.

Square in Argenteuil. Sisley’s close friend Monet had moved in December 1871 to the village of Argenteuil on the north bank of the Seine. Judging from the number of paintings of the village and the adjacent river, Sisley must often have visited Monet there and on at least two occasions the artists set up their easels side-by-side.
See: Alfred Sisley. Square in Argenteuil (rue de la Chaussée).

Chemin de la Machine, Louveciennes. The building to the right is the house of Madame du Barry, favorite of Louis XV, who lived in Louveciennes from 1771 to 1793. Its unusually small windows were designed to minimize the terrible noise of the pumping machine on the Seine which supplied water to the royal gardens at Marly-le-Roi.
See: Alfred Sisley. Chemin de la Machine, Louveciennes.

The Lesson is unique in Sisley’s work – a close-up view of figures in an interior. Only three or four other interiors are known and a handful of still lifes in an output of just over 900 paintings, all landscapes. The artist’s two children Pierre (b.1867) and Jeanne (b.1869) are seen at their lessons in the family home in Voisins on the edge  of Louveciennes. Jeanne, a painter, died in 1919 and Pierre, a decorator and draughtsman, died in considerable poverty in 1929.
See: Alfred Sisley. The Lesson.

The Church at Moret. There are 14 paintings of the Eglise Notre-Dame at Moret, all viewed from the same angle (south-west) in different weather and in different seasons. They were completed between summer 1993 and summer the following year.
See: Alfred Sisley. The Church at Moret in Morning Sun. The Church at Moret - Icy Weather. The Church at Moret, Winter. The Church at Moret.

Bibliography:
Painters of Montmartre by Illana Soldea. Bucharest. 1986.
Painting of Europe. XIII-XX centuries. Encyclopedic Dictionary. Moscow. Iskusstvo. 1999.
Sisley by Richard Shone, Alfred Sisley. Phaidon Press Inc., 1999.
Alfred Sisley by Mary Anne Stevens (Editor). Yale Univ Pr, 1992.