Overview
François Clément Sommier, best known under his pseudonym “Henry Somm,” was born in Rouen in 1844. He attended the local École municipale des beaux-arts and went on in 1867 to Paris, where he studied under Isidore Pils (1813-1875).
Somm’s academic training forged his impeccable mastery of painting but it is in the graphic realm that he excelled the most. “Somm is above all a painter and his watercolors are much sought after; he has the painter’s eye to the highest degree imaginable,” his fellow artist Louis Morin stated in 1893. Particularly prolific, he produced a very extensive corpus of 7,500 drawings and prints, many of which were widely reproduced in journals and magazines.
1867 marked a turning point in his career when Japanese art was shown in France for the first time at the Paris International Exhibition. At that time, Somm also befriended the French collector and critic Philippe Burty, who was a fanatical champion of etching and Japanese prints. Burty invited Somm to study his collection and encouraged him to stimulate this creativity through the study of the decorative visual idiom of Japanese art. Somm’s interest in the style echoed a more general movement in French art called Japonism. Many artists like him produced artworks inspired by the imaginary and techniques -- innovative use of perspective, composition and color -- found in Japanese prints. Somm’s take on Japonism, and especially his work on the effect of light, shadow and color prompted Edgar Degas to invite him to participate in the 4th Impressionist exhibition in 1879. Although Somm did not exhibit again with the Impressionists and was never officially affiliated with the group, his work was very innovative and intersected between Impressionism, Symbolism and Japonism. In fact, while his dry points and etchings reflect a more literal borrowing of Japanese elements than the work of Whistler or Monet, they also clearly anticipated the future work of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
As habitués of the Chat noir, a cabaret located in Montmartre, Somm and Toulouse-Lautrec developed a long-lasting friendship. More than a cabaret, the Chat noir was an absolute hotbed for the fin-de-siècle literary and artistic avant-garde. For Somm, one of its founding members, the club also served as a unique environment where he could express his limitless imagination. He for example partook in the literary soirées organized by the hydropathic group and illustrated many issues of the Chat noir journal.
In 1886, Somm collaborated with Georges Auriol to create the Chat noir’s first puppet show that eventually became the cabaret’s fame shadow performance. Somm’s Japonism and humoristic art inspired Toulouse-Lautrec, who in turn created posters in the same fashion for two other Montmartre nightspots, Le Mirliton and Le Divan Japonais. Despite their age difference, the portraits Toulouse-Lautrec made of Somm are evidence of their mutual respect and friendship.