Art Brokerage: (1910-1988) Antoine Blanchard was born in France on November 15, 1910 in a small village near the banks of the Loire. He was the eldest of three children and his father managed a small carpentry and furniture shop. Antoine would watch his father hand carve the furniture and began to display an artistic flair early in life - in an effort to promote this talent, his parents sent him to Blois for drawing lessons. He continued his training in Rennes at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts where he studied sculpture and drawing. Upon completion of his studies, he was awarded the schools highest award: Le Prix du Ministre. In 1939 Antoine married a young woman he met in Paris and in September of that year war broke out and he was called up for service. It was not until 1942 that he would return to his art. His daughter Nicole was born in 1944 - she too would follow in the family tradition and after the birth of her two daughters, she became an artist working under the name A. Champeau. It was also around this time that Antoine's father passed away and he was compelled to return to his hometown and run the family business - giving him little time to paint. By 1948 he had given control of the family business to his younger brother and returned to Paris to paint. Contemporary life in Paris had changed and he longed for the bygone days. He began to research the Belle Époque period in Paris - reading and studying all the material on the period he could find. Many of the subjects and scenes he portrayed were taken from images he collected of Paris during the 1890's and he would often work on paintings for days or months before he finally felt they were complete. A.P. Larde comments in his book Antoine Blanchard, His Life His Work that he has always spent much time on his work. This explains why his production has always been rather limited, unlike the hurried and multiple proliferations of some modern artists… Delicate touches of luminous and shimmering tones produce a marvelous impression of harmony, brightness and light. Alternate shadings and lights, sensitive and mellow blending allow the artist to attain a hardly-ever reached degree of grace, of radiant and glimmering freshness.