Anna Boch (1848-1936) - Heidelandschap

Very fine plein air study by Anna Boch (1848-1936). A couple of small nail holes in the corner and holes in the middle; this is probably a canvas that was cut from a larger canvas to make painting on site easier.

Comparable work sold at auction in 2021, see last photo.

Anna Boch was the eldest daughter of the director of the Kéramis Boch factory in La Louvière and she herself also designed a number of decorations.

When the family moved to Brussels, Anna made the acquaintance of a number of painters. She received her first painting lessons from Pierre-Louis Kuhnen (1812-1877) and from 1874 from Euphrosine Beernaert. She was later in 1876 initiated by Isidore Verheyden (and also by Michel van Alphen) into painting and plein air in the surroundings of the Sonian Forest. They continued to collaborate for ten years. Anna Boch later also took lessons from Théodore Baron.

She debuted at the Brussels Salon in 1880 and held her first solo exhibition at the Cercle artistique et littéraire in 1884. She showed a canvas at the Paris Salon in 1885. She joined in 1885, as the only female member, the avant-garde circle Les XX in Brussels (1883-1893). After the turn of the century she also joined the post-impressionist circle Vie et Lumière (Brussels 1904-1914). Anna Boch displayed her works in 1907 in a retrospective at the Cercle artistique of Brussels and, the following year, at the Galerie Druet in Paris. In her works she favored landscapes, still lifes with flowers, sunny beaches, the Belgian coast and dunes, the coasts of Brittany and the Netherlands.

She was in 1911 one of the co-founders of Galerie Lyceum, a Brussels association of female visual artists. She was represented there with several canvases at the opening exhibition. In the same year she was elected president of the jury of the Salon d'Art Moderne in Charleroi.

She was also a great collector of artworks. After her death, her estate included 212 of her own works and 219 paintings by Belgian and foreign painters who had exhibited at Les XX. She bequeathed a substantial portion of her collection to the Museum of Fine Arts in Brussels, including works by James Ensor (donated during her lifetime), Signac, Seurat and Paul Gauguin.