Francois Auguste Biard

François-Auguste Biard went further than almost any painter of his time to find his subjects. He sailed to the Arctic, lived in Brazil and travelled in Egypt and the Middle East, and his pictures of polar ice, walrus hunts and Amazon villages carry the curiosity of an explorer, often with a touch of humour.

Born in Lyon in 1799, he started out in a wallpaper factory before studying at the École des Beaux-Arts, and made his Salon debut in 1824. In 1839 he joined a French scientific expedition to Spitsbergen and Lapland, which gave him material for years, including Fishing for Walrus in the Arctic Ocean. His large Proclamation of the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies (1849) records the decree of 1848 and hangs at Versailles. Around 1858 he spent two years in Brazil and later wrote a book about it. He died in 1882.

Look for the small human dramas he places inside vast landscapes.