Ernest Marneffe (1866-1920) Self-portrait

Ernest Marneffe (1866-1920) Self-portrait, c.1890, oil on canvas, 46 x 38 cm, signed lower left. Framed dimensions 54 x 45 cm.

Ernest Marneffe, Liège (1866-1920) was a Belgian painter, engraver and draftsman. He studied at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Liège, where he was a pupil of Adrien de Witte. He then shared a studio in Liège with François Maréchal and received advice from Félicien Rops and Pierre Puvis de Chavannes during his stay in Paris. He presented himself at the Salon des Indépendants in 1890.
In 1892 he traveled to Provence, staying in Sisteron. He returned there regularly and painted a few landscapes. In 1905 he exhibited two paintings, Liseuse and Sur la Terrasse, at the International Exhibition of Fine Arts which took place during the Universal Exhibition of Liège.
He lived between Liège, where he presented his first major exhibition in 1912, Paris, where he collaborated with the newspaper La Charge, and Provence. Shortly before his death in September 1920, he was a professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Liège and enjoyed success at an exhibition organized at the Royal Gallery in Brussels.