Eugène Boch

Who was Eugène Boch?

Eugène Boch was a Belgian painter, born in Saint-Waast, Nord, Hainaut, and the younger brother of Anna Boch, a founding member of Les XX.

Born into the 5th generation of the Boch family, a wealthy dynasty of manufacturers of fine china and ceramics, still active today under the firm of Villeroy & Boch, Eugène Boch enrolled in the private atelier of Léon Bonnat in Paris, in 1879. From 1882, when Bonnat closed his atelier, he studied at the atelier of Fernand Cormon. Paintings of his were admitted to the Salon in 1882, 1883 and 1885.

In 1888, he was introduced by Dodge MacKnight to Vincent van Gogh.

In 1892 he settled in Monthyon, not far from Paris. In 1909, he married Anne-Marie Léonie Crusfond, in 1910 they moved to their recently erected chalet "La Grimpette", where both lived until their death.

Like his sister Anna Boch, Eugène supported artists of talent, but without money, including Émile Bernard, whom he met at the Atelier Cormon, and Paul Gauguin. Or he exchanged works, as with van Gogh. Thus little by little, an important collection of contemporary art came together. Besides his own portrait Eugène Boch owned a second van Gogh painting.