DOI Heft:
No. 228 (March 1912)
DOI Artikel:Honoré, Léopold: An Alsatian landscpae painter: Henri Zuber
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.21156#0128
Henri Zuber
AN ALSATIAN LANDSCAPE
PAINTER: HENRI ZUBER. BY
LEOPOLD HONORE.
In tracing back the ancestry of Henri Zuber, the
Alsatian painter who died prematurely on April 7,
1909, we must go back as far as 1600, the date at
which the family, originally of Swiss extraction,
settled at Mulhouse. On consulting the notes of
our sympathetic and learned confrere M. Ernest
Meininger, vice-president of the Administrative
Committee of the Historical Museum at Mulhouse,
we gather that several members of the Zuber family
were surgeons, but the most celebrated of the artist’s
ancestors was, without doubt, Jean Zuber, who,
towards the end of the eighteenth century, founded
the large manufactory of wall-papers at Rixheim
which to-day prospers under the direction of M. Ivan
Zuber, brother of Henri Zuber, and of M. Ernest
Zuber, the lamented president of the Society of Arts
at Mulhouse.
Henri Zuber was born at Rixheim on June 24,
1844, and passed his schooldays successively at
Lensburg, in Switzerland, at the Gymnasium at
Strasburg, and in Paris. Here in 1861 he entered
the Naval School, which he left in 1863 with the
rank of second-class midshipman. His first ship
was the Montebello, which he joined at Toulon, soon
after going to the Themis, the vessel that acted as
escort to the Australian frigate, the Novara, which
carried the Emperor Maximilian and all his fortune
to Mexico.
On his return from Mexico in the spring of 1865
Henri Zuber was transferred to a ship which
took part in an expedition to Corea, and it was
during the operations there that he obtained his
promotion to the rank of sub-lieutenant. When
he came back to France in 1868, in spite of the
brilliant future to which he could look forward in
the Navy, Henri Zuber decided to leave the service
in order to give free rein to his artistic proclivities.
He was well inspired that day! Certain water-
colour drawings which he signed at this time already
gave promise of his future talent. Such a com-
mencement to a career is for a painter by no means
commonplace.
The exhibition of his paintings which was held a
few months ago at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was
a posthumous triumph for this Alsatian artist, and
was also full of teaching for those young men who,
halting on their way, ask where truth can be found
and which is the road that leads to real art. Art
“LA FONTAINE DE L’OBSERVATOIRE FROM A WATEH-COLOUR BY HENRI ZUBER
I08
AN ALSATIAN LANDSCAPE
PAINTER: HENRI ZUBER. BY
LEOPOLD HONORE.
In tracing back the ancestry of Henri Zuber, the
Alsatian painter who died prematurely on April 7,
1909, we must go back as far as 1600, the date at
which the family, originally of Swiss extraction,
settled at Mulhouse. On consulting the notes of
our sympathetic and learned confrere M. Ernest
Meininger, vice-president of the Administrative
Committee of the Historical Museum at Mulhouse,
we gather that several members of the Zuber family
were surgeons, but the most celebrated of the artist’s
ancestors was, without doubt, Jean Zuber, who,
towards the end of the eighteenth century, founded
the large manufactory of wall-papers at Rixheim
which to-day prospers under the direction of M. Ivan
Zuber, brother of Henri Zuber, and of M. Ernest
Zuber, the lamented president of the Society of Arts
at Mulhouse.
Henri Zuber was born at Rixheim on June 24,
1844, and passed his schooldays successively at
Lensburg, in Switzerland, at the Gymnasium at
Strasburg, and in Paris. Here in 1861 he entered
the Naval School, which he left in 1863 with the
rank of second-class midshipman. His first ship
was the Montebello, which he joined at Toulon, soon
after going to the Themis, the vessel that acted as
escort to the Australian frigate, the Novara, which
carried the Emperor Maximilian and all his fortune
to Mexico.
On his return from Mexico in the spring of 1865
Henri Zuber was transferred to a ship which
took part in an expedition to Corea, and it was
during the operations there that he obtained his
promotion to the rank of sub-lieutenant. When
he came back to France in 1868, in spite of the
brilliant future to which he could look forward in
the Navy, Henri Zuber decided to leave the service
in order to give free rein to his artistic proclivities.
He was well inspired that day! Certain water-
colour drawings which he signed at this time already
gave promise of his future talent. Such a com-
mencement to a career is for a painter by no means
commonplace.
The exhibition of his paintings which was held a
few months ago at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts was
a posthumous triumph for this Alsatian artist, and
was also full of teaching for those young men who,
halting on their way, ask where truth can be found
and which is the road that leads to real art. Art
“LA FONTAINE DE L’OBSERVATOIRE FROM A WATEH-COLOUR BY HENRI ZUBER
I08