Galerie Paul Prouté

Although he produced some 150 etchings and around fifteen lithographs, it was for his achievements in the field of woodcut printing that Auguste Lepère found success and secured his place in history. The son of a sculptor, Lepère joined the workshop of the wood engraver Joseph Burn-Smeeton at a very young age and initially worked on providing newspapers with end-grain woodcut illustrations (of which there are almost a thousand). Drawn to drawing and painting on the one hand, yet constrained on the other by the encroaching advance of photomechanical reproduction processes, Lepère subsequently turned his attention to original prints (for books or decorative purposes). Created using end-grain wood, sometimes coloured, with lines that became increasingly simplified and stylised (in contrast to the subtle gradation of tones that had initially made the artist’s reputation), these prints by Lepère (a few landscapes of Île-de-France or the Vendée and numerous urban views, mainly of Paris) played a pioneering role in the revival of woodcut printing in the late 19th century.