Early life , Paris (Postcard) William Didier-Pouget was born in Toulouse. He was the son of a newspaper editor. Antoine Paul Jules Edgar Pouget, a nature lover, encouraged William in his ambition to become an artist. The two would often take long walks together, the elder pointing out natural phenomena while discussing methods of their pictorial representation. He related biographical details of the great artists, past and present, and in every possible way trained the boy while rousing his ambition. Didier-Pouget began his formal art training at the
École des Beaux-Arts in the city of Toulouse. He later studied at the
Académie de Paris with Amédée (Jean Amédée) Baudit (1826–1890), a French landscape painter, and made his debut at the
Salon de Paris in 1886. He later studied with
Louis-Augustin Auguin, an associate of
Gustave Courbet and
Jean-Baptiste Corot. Ultimately, Didier-Pouget was accepted into the studio of
Maxime Lalanne, the celebrated artist, illustrator and etcher. Under these influences many profitable years followed. The seeds were sown for what would become Didier-Pouget's fruitful career as an artist.
Painting career In Toulouse, the young artist had already been regarded as a prodigy of talent, and great things were expected of him. Paintings were exhibited in the provinces, attracting much attention, and found many purchasers. Encouraged, Didier-Pouget sought a wider audience, and moved to Paris; a wise step for his career. From 1886 he exhibited regularly at the Salons, each new season showing a marked advancement in his art, "bringing to the world of Paris new and delightful colour-schemes and vivid compositions." Didier-Pouget excelled in depicting morning and sunset effects. "His scenes of heather bathed in sunshine or glistening with the dew of an autumnal sunrise are rendered with an exceptional verisimilitude, strength, and truth", wrote
Wynford Dewhurst in 1901. During the height of his career, Didier-Pouget's favorite subjects were beautiful fields of heather in the fog, forests filled with light, plateaus in the
Creuse Valley, and the
Dordogne River winding through the hills. His clients at the time included
George I of Greece, Carnegie Museum, the embassy at Saint-Petersbourg, conseil municipal au Capitule de Toulouse, Musée des Ursulines de Mâcon, Palais des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris (
Petit Palais), Conseil Municipal de l'Hôtel de Ville (
Saint-Bertrand-de-Comminges), and
Raymond Poincaré (president of France from 1913 to 1920). Wynford Dewhurst wrote again of Didier-Pouget in 1904: "If the greatest art is to represent an impression of Nature at her best, then the work of Didier-Pouget is great. 'It is truly worth while being a painter to have produced any one of these,' writes the critic of
Le Temps. The artist loves best to represent Nature in her peaceful moods, and generally seeks the solitudes of the exquisite hills, valleys, and rivers of the Tarbes countryside, or the rich watershed of La Creuse. Here, in the fresh early-morn, charged with dew and mist, he finds his subjects, overlooking magnificent panoramas of river, hillsides covered with heather, across valleys and plains from which loom out sculpturesque masses of foliage, dark and strong against the blue mist and distant mountain ridge. The painter prefers Nature serene and undisturbed, and introduces but little incident." ==Awards==