Francois Lafon (b.1846 Paris, France)

Painter; Religious subjects, allegorical subjects, mythological subjects, portraits and Orientalism.
Francois Lafon was the son of Jacque Emile Lafon (1817-1886), Legion d’Honneur, 1859; a very noted French historical painter of the Post Napoleonic/Neo-Classic Period. He studied with his father and then with Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889). The opportunity to study in the atelier of the master artist Cabanel allowed him to refine his signature of style to the efflorescence level achieved by a select few.
Having been in the environment of the classic artists working thru the Ecole de Beaux-Arts and especially his artist father's circle, one can see the very disciplined effect on the quality draftsmanship and composition of his paintings.
He began his career at the Salon de Paris in 1875 and exhibited ‘Mother and her Children in 1878 and gained an honorable mention in 1885.
He was a member of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts from 1890 and was represented at the Salon as part of the group. He took part in a competition organized by a committee of town halls of Paris and the neighboring areas along the theme of republican ideology.
His slender, graceful, dreamlike nymphs and lifelike academic figures of peasant women often adopted affected poses.

Museums: Perigueux, France; Rouen, France; Sanit Brieuc, France; and important 19th and 20th Century American & European private heritage collections.