Anna Boch was a Belgian painter, born in Saint-Vaast, Hainaut, in the 5th generation of the Boch family who made Ceramics since 1748. Her father Victor Boch operated the company Boch Freres and her uncle Eugen von Boch
the company Villeroy & Boch.
Anna Boch participated in the Neo-Impressionist and Impressionnist movement. Her early works used a Pointillist technique, but she is best known for her Impressionist style. As a pupil of Isidore Verheyden, she was influenced by Theo van Rysselberghe. She was the only woman to be part of the Art Moovement Les XX.
Cremerie de Paris / Hotel de Villeroy Bourbon, home of the Cremerie de Paris / Hotel de Villeroy Bourbon is also the home of the Phone Book of the World.com, since 2011 iconic Brand Expo Center and the new home of Anna Boch.com
Francois Levie has made the fascinating documentary on Anna Boch.
The film is shown at the Wellington Museum in Waterloo, south of Brussels
The opening night was january 19 2016.
In the above picture the filmmaker Françoise Levie with her beautiful daughter,
and Anna Boch's family,
the sculptor Alfred Blondel, his son Thomas Blondel
and the editor of this website.
Talking to Alfred Blondel and Françoise Levie
was a fascinating
a few minutes
really worth all the drive to Belgium ...
Besides her own paintings,
Anna and Eugene Boch owned
one of the most important collections of impressionist paintings of its time.
Thanks to her father´s ceramics business
and her moderate down to earth lifestyle she was financially well off, all her life.
This gave her the possibility
to promote young artists,
including unknown Vincent van Gogh, who had no success
and whom she admired for his talent. She knew about him through her younger brother Eugene.
Vincent van Gogh was a friend of her brother Eugene Boch.
The portrait "The Poet" (Le peintre aux Etoiles) was done in September 1888 in the Yellow House in Arles.
Van Gogh paintings bought by Anna Boch
It might also be
that Anna Boch
bought the painting
... to please
to her younger brother
Eugene
to whom
she was very close
"Le Vigne Rouge"
(The Red Vineyard)
was painted Nov 5 1888.
Anna Boch purchased it
in 1890,
during the Brussels Art Expo at les 20.
The painting made Anna Boch
enter the history books.
She was the very first one, years ahead of her time,
to buy a Van Gogh painting.
She payed only 400 Francs
(1600 $ in today´s value)
for one of the World´s
most prestigeous and valuable Paintings
probably worth over
a 100 million $
today.
The Painting is at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.
years ahead of her time
Anna Boch
understood
Van Gogh paintings
"La plaine de la Crau"
was the second Van Gogh painting bought by Anna Boch
at the Tanguy Gallery in Paris
in 1891.
La Seine à la Grand Jatte by Georges Seurat was one of several hundred
high profile paintings in Anna Boch´s collection.
Today the painting is in the Musee Royal de Beaux Arts in Brussels.
Anna Boch travelling and painting around the coasts of France
Anna Boch´s Cultural Heritage
Anna and her brother Eugen Boch in 1930.
Most of the Anna Boch collection was sold after her death in 1936.
In her will, she donated the money to pay for the retirement of poor artist friends.
Some paintings were also donated to the Musees Royaux des Beaux Arts in Brussels.
140 paintings were left to Anna´s godchild, Ida van Haelewijn,
daughter of the gardener Antoine van Haelewijn.
In 1968
Anna´s great nephiew,
Luitwin von Boch,
a successful & visionary entrepreneur
aquired the entire collection for a future Anna Boch Museum ... years ahead of his time.
In 1979 Luitwin von Boch opened the Museum of Ceramics
where a very limited number of Anna Boch paintings could be seen
next to ceramic treasures produced by the family for over 200 years.
The paintings remained in Ida van Haelewijn´s house
until the end of her life in 1992.
A permanent Anna Boch Exposition
has open in april 2011 the above building in Mettlach / Germany
.
While updating this website
the editor had a coffee with a friend from New York
"Why are none of the worldfamous masterpeices of your great aunt's
and your great uncle's collection
are at the Museum of Ceramics in Mettlach ?".
When he was still a child and guide of the museum
someone else had asked him the same question ...
Neither Anna Boch
nor Eugene Boch
have left a single painting
to the Museum of Ceramics in Mettlach.
It is located at the Old Abbey
where they stayed as children.
Everything what is there today
has been bought at a later time.
The masterpiece paintings
from there
own collections
are in Paris - Musee d'Orsay Moscow- Pushkin Museum London - Courtault Institute New York - Guggenheim Museum Brussels - Musée Royal des Beaux Arts
there must be a reason ....
People known in common
Anna Boch died in 1936,
Eugene Boch in 1941
Their cousin Octave Maus in 1919 already.
While Anna Boch had kept a diary, Octave Maus many letters
uncle Eugene kept little notes. How did the editor of this website,
born decades after them get his information ?
Maria von Boch Brügmann
There was also the loved
aunt Maria von Boch Brügmann (1899-1980)
wife of uncle Dodo.
Maria and Dodo had lived at the Villa Ziegelberg.
The picture of young uncle Dodo
standing behind the car
was taken around 1910.
His father Edmond von Boch (1845-1931)
was Eugene and Anna's direct cousin.
His grandfather was Eugene von Boch
the brother of Anna's father Victor Boch.
Edmond build the villaZiegelberg in 1878.
Considered as a bit scandalous
Dodo and Maria had left their villa around 1930
and moved to the south of Germany.
Maria knew everybody
the editor of this article (as a child and teenager)
his mother
his grandfather (a nephew of Maria's husband)
his great grandfather (a direct cousin of her husband)
and
Anna Boch & Eugène Boch (when they were old
- they were direct cousins of her father in law)
.
Maria was very stylish glamorous and generous,
she always had lots of time for children.
Aunt Maria had extraordinary presents
nobody else was giving
but the best was when she invited the children
to a Very Beautiful Grand Hotel,
like
the Hotel Vierjahreszeiten in Munich.
And there ... in the Hotel Lobby
she had all the time in the world
to tell them fairy tales ...
"You know uncle Dodo and You once had
an aunt and an uncle that lived in Belgium and France ...
We knew them very well.
They had been friends with all the famous
impressionist painters,
Vincent van Gogh, Claude Monet, Paul Czesanne,
Paul Signac, Georges Seurat,
Henri Toulouse Lautrec, Paul Gauguin, Dodge Mac Knight ..".
And sometimes Maria was talking
about another Fairytale Lady
she had met many times
sitting in the same Vierjahreszeiten
Hotel Lobby.
All the children that had the chance
to know Maria
will remember her all live.
Odette de Blignières
Odette de Blignieres (1913-2009)
coming soon
People transmitting information
Anna Boch died in 1936,
Eugene Boch in 1941
Their cousin Octave Maus in 1919 already.
While Anna Boch had kept a diary, Octave Maus many letters
no notes from uncle Eugene are left. How did the editor of this website,
born decades after them, get his information ?
Dr Therèse Thomas
Dr Therese Thomas was a the curator of the
Museum of Ceramics.
Dr Thérèse Thomas, once hired by Luitwin von Boch
to run the Museum of Ceramics in Mettlach,
has a passion for Anna Boch.
She collected uncountable information on her.
Never discouraging Dr Thomas kept searching and followed up on any source
to recuparate valuable and lost Information
of the times of the Impressionists.
1979 Ziegelberg was converted into a place
to host the reopened
Museum of Ceramics.
As a child the editor of this article had learned to tourguide
the museum
and his teachers were his grandfather
and
a charming Lady
Dr Therese Thomas
with a bit of a French accent.
And recently in a phone conversation Dr Thomas told him "You never stoped asking questions"
more coming soon ...
Museums which show Anna Boch Paintings
or Paintings from the Anna Boch Collection
