EUGENE BOUDIN

Born on July 12, 1824 in Honfleur, Eugène Boudin, a precursor of Impressionism, spent his youth in Le Havre and then, from 1864 onwards, stayed every summer in Trouville-sur-Mer and Deauville. He transcribed the scenes of seaside life, from the elegant women to the bustle of the markets, from the Augeron landscapes to the ports. As a painter of skies, he endeavored in his paintings to transcribe the transience of light, the changing skies, the material of clouds and the inconstancy of the sea. In Deauville, Eugène Boudin was seduced by the view of the beach from the pier. He regularly settled there with his easel and painted the same view of the beach, with the same framing under different lights.

In 1884, Eugène Boudin had his house built in Deauville, the Villa Les Ajoncs - a small Dutch cage - today renamed La Breloque, at 8 rue Olliffe - where he spent the last fourteen years of his life.

Eugène Boudin produced more than a hundred paintings and gouaches in Deauville.

Since 1998, a plaque has been affixed to the façade of the house where he lived. In August 2010, a plaque was also placed on the seawall of Port Deauville. It reproduces the painting "The beach of Deauville" (1893), which belongs to the Museum of Fine Arts in Caen.