biography of Leon POMAREDE (1807-1892)

Birth place: Tarbes, France

Death place: St. Louis, MO

Addresses: Active in New Orleans, LA and St. Louis, MO

Profession: Panoramist, landscape-, miniature-, scene-, and religious painter

Studied: Paris; Germany; Italy; with Mr. Findelles (?); received further instruction in New Orleans (c. 1830) from theatrical painters Antoine Mondelli (whose daughter he eventually married) and Louis Dominique Grandjean Develle

Exhibited: Pomarede's Original Panorama of the Mississippi River and Indian Life" was shown in St. Louis in Sept. 1849; New Orleans at Armory Hall (Nov. 1849-Jan. 13, 1850); other cities included Mobile, AL; NYC; and Newark, NJ (Nov. 1850)"

Comments: Arrived in U.S. about 1830 and was soon living in New Orleans where, in Jan. of 1832, he advertised that he could ornament rooms in oil and fresco. That same year he moved to St. Louis (MO) and painted one of the earliest views of the town. In 1834 he decorated the Cathedral in St. Louis with oil paintings, frescoes, and transparent window paintings. He returned to New Orleans in 1837, opened a studio, and in 1841 completed a commission for three religious pictures at St. Patrick's Church. For these paintings, which were first shown to the public in June 1841, he received assistance from Mondelli (in painting the ceiling) and from George David Coulon (for Transfiguration" ). By October of 1843 he had gone back to St. Louis where he settled permanently. He went into partnership with T.E. Courtenay (see entry) as plain and ornamental painters. In 1848 Pomarede collaborated for a short time with Henry Lewis (see entry); but the association soon was dissolved and each set out to produce his own version. Pomarede reportedly had the assistance of Charles Wimar (see entry) in making the sketches and paintings that eventually were used to complete his panorama. With his partner Courtenay, Pomarede took the Mississippi panorama on tour to St. Louis, New Orleans, and several other cities until it was destroyed by fire at Newark (NJ) in November 1850. After this loss Pomarede returned to St. Louis, reopened his studio and spent the rest of his life painting religious and genre pictures and murals for churches, theaters, and public buildings. He died at the age of 85, from injuries received in a fall from a scaffold in a church he was decorating at Hannibal (MO). Aappears also as De Pomarede, or De la Pomarede.

Sources: G&W; McDermott, "Leon Pomarede, 'Our Parisian Knight of the Easel,'" with seven repros.; Arrington, "Leon D. Pomarede's Original Panorama of the Mississippi River"; Arrington, "Nauvoo Temple," Chapter 8; Delgado-WPA cites Courier, Nov. 9, 1841, and Daily Picayune, Nov. 27, 1849. More recently, see Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists, 311-12. "

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