Paul Baudoüin

Paul Baudoüin (1844–1931) was a French painter and muralist who specialised in large-scale decorative paintings for public buildings in Paris. He trained at the École des Beaux-Arts under Alexandre Cabanel and won the Prix de Rome in 1870, spending four years in Italy. On his return he received major municipal commissions, including decorations for Parisian schools and the Paris Hôtel de Ville. His Histoire du blé series (1875) — allegorical paintings depicting the cultivation and processing of wheat — was created for a school in the 15th arrondissement. His Hôtel de Ville commissions of 1889 depicted episodes from the Siege of Paris in 1870–71: wounded being carried to ambulances, troops departing, citizens queuing. These large esquisse compositions demonstrate his command of multi-figure historical narrative in the French academic tradition. His Blanchisseuses for the Mairie of Arcueil-Cachan (1888) shows his continued work for suburban Parisian municipalities. He lived to eighty-seven, spanning virtually the entire Third Republic.

Baudoüin worked in the tradition of French academic mural painting inherited from the Second Empire — large canvases with multiple figures, clear narrative structure, classically derived composition, warm academic palette. His public works are designed to be legible at a distance, their figures placed in clear spatial relationships with strong tonal contrast.

Baudoüin was a productive contributor to the programme of decorating Paris's public buildings under the Third Republic. His Hôtel de Ville panels depicting the Siege of Paris are historically significant documents of how the Republic chose to commemorate that traumatic event in official art.