Boulevard de la Madeleine, Edouard Cortes
Edouard Léon Cortès (1882–1969)
was a French post-impressionist artist. He is known as "Le Poète Parisien
de la Peinture" or "the Parisian Poet of Painting" because of
his diverse Paris cityscapes in a variety of weather and night settings.
Although Cortès was a pacifist,
when war came close to his native village he was compelled to enlist in a
French Infantry Regiment at the age of 32. Sent to the front lines, Cortès was
wounded by a bayonet, evacuated to a military hospital, and awarded the Croix
de Guerre. After recovery he was reassigned to use his artistic talent to
sketch enemy positions. Later in life his convictions led him to refuse the
Légion d'Honneur from the French Government.
His wife died in 1918, and the
following year he married his sister-in-law, Lucienne Joyeuse. Cortès lived a
simple life amid a close circle of friends. He died on November 26, 1969.