Hélène Rivière 1896-1977

In 1938 Rivière won the Rosa Bonheur prize for her talent as a painter. She was known for her paintings of flowers and for landscapes of the Tarn region, views of the eastern Pyrenees and the charming seaside villages of Collioure and Banyuls, where she spent some time being instructed by her great friend and mentor Henri Martin. Rivière began to participate in exhibitions of artists in the south of France from 1920. She also exhibited after 1926 in Paris at the Salon des Artistes Français where her work won a silver medal in 1931 and a gold medal in 1935. She won another silver medal at the International Exposition of 1937.

Following in her father’s footsteps, Rivière became a professor of art at a school for young women in Toulouse. She died in 1977, putting an end, as one journalist wrote at the time, “to her relationship with art, the companion of her life.”

Listed: E. Bénézit, Dictionnaire Critique et Documentaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Gründ, Paris, 1999.