Painting by Eugène Alluaud, titled View of the Creuse valley

Eugène Alluaud, born in Saint-Martin-Terressus (Haute-Vienne) on March 25, 1866 and died in Crozant (Creuse) on July 27, 1947, was a French painter and ceramist. His father Amédée, an enlightened art lover and collector, received Corot on several occasions at his château de Ribagnac. A close friend of Adrien Dubouché, he supported the Crozant painters. On his death, his friend and painter Charles Donzel gave young Eugène advice on painting. Alluaud studied literature at the Jesuit college in Vaugirard, then science at the Lycée Condorcet. He completed his military service as a conditional enlistee for one year in 1885-1886. From 1886 to 1889, he was a student at the Académie Julian, in Bouguereau's and Robert-Fleury's studios, and traveled throughout Europe (England, Belgium and Italy) and North Africa (Algeria and Tunisia). His major pictorial experience came in Crozant. After an initial discovery in 1887, he returned for a long visit in 1891. With his wife Marcelle, he built the house “La Roca”, where they settled every summer from 1905 onwards. He gathered his artist friends around his table. Together, they painted the landscapes of the Creuse valley and entertained each other in a joyful atmosphere. He gathered his artist friends around his table. Two names emerged from this network of friendships: Maurice Rollinat, the poet from Fresselines, and Armand Guillaumin, co-founder of the Impressionist group, who introduced him to light and color. His painting was thus strongly influenced by Impressionism, but in the 1920s he managed to break away from it with a more constructive, synthetic style inspired by Cézanne. He exhibited regularly in galleries, in Limoges at Dalpayrat and in Paris at Durand-Ruel and Drouant. He regularly participated in the Salon des Indépendants and the Salon d'Automne. At the 1900 Universal Exhibition, he decorated the Palais de la Danse and the Grandes Marques pavilion-restaurant. President of the jury for the painting section at the Salon d'Automne in 1928, he himself was awarded the Grand Prix at the French Exhibition in Cairo in 1929.Alluaud mainly painted the Creuse region, but also Corrèze and Haute-Vienne, the Pyrenees and the Côte d'Azur.