There are sometimes certain personalities who mark their time without being noticed, in all discretion, in all simplicity, leaving their mark on all those who take the trouble to find it, and appreciate it.

This is undoubtedly the case of Henri Caron, painter of the Bay of Somme born in Abbeville.

     I - Presentation

     Henry Paul Edmond Caron was born in Abbeville on May 9, 1860. Son of the director of the mutual school of the rue Saint Jacques in Abbeville, descendant of a line of Picardie, and among his ancestors the painter of the cordeliers of Abbeville, Jean-François Flicourt Canchy (1734-1794), he has this ability to draw for his only pleasure.

In Abbeville, he made his first artistic studies under the direction of Jules Caudron. Then he went to Paris to finish his studies and joined public assistance as a bursar at the household house in Issy-les-Moulineaux in 1893, then director of the Tarnier clinic in 1898. He found the son of his first director , Eugene Caudron with whom he works before returning to the academy Colarossi to improve his anatomy and kinesiology to give a soul to the characters of his paintings. He will remain faithful to this institution all his life despite his departure for Hendaye where he held his duties in the sanatorium until his retirement in 1913.

In parallel, his second passion is the Baie de Somme where he returns regularly for his holidays or the opening of the hunt, the rifle on one side, the box of paint on the other. Several of his paintings represent the Picardy fauna before the "golden wheels of Ponthieu".
On May 18, 1894, he married in Paris Marie Zélie Pelisse (1872-1959) with whom he had 4 children.

The First World War broke out and his first son was killed on the front in 1915. His grief still takes him back into painting, in which he can freely express his moods and resentment. Impressionist in his pure state, he sets his easel on the beaches, in the open fields or in the shade of a chestnut tree to paint again and again ...
Nevertheless, most of his paintings remain clear, fresh, serene, harmonious. And this until 1940, beginning of the second world war.

Henri Caron died in Paris in full German occupation on September 29, 1941.

     II - His work

     Impressionist, he paints oils of all sizes, watercolors, drawings, charcoals, pastels etc., almost all having the setting of the Baie de Somme and the immense beaches of the North.

Here are a few:

The beach of Cayeux sur Mer ; Musée Boucher de Perthes

This article on Henri Caron was produced with the kind participation and permission of Mr. J.-M. Caron.
With our thanks.