Artist Information
Artist
Harry B. Lachman (1886-1975)Role
PainterDate made
1921Time Period
20th CenturyNotes
ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Born in La Salle, Illinois, Harry B. Lachman was an American artist, set designer, and film director. Lachman became one of the leading European Post-Impressionist painters in early 20th century. Orphaned at age 10, he studied at the University of Michigan after which he began a career in Chicago as an illustrator and cover artist for Cosmopolitan and The Saturday Evening Post, among others. In 1991, he moved to Paris where he earned a successful living as an artist until the mid-1920s.
A friend of the Cubist artist Pablo Picasso (1871-1973) as well as a number of leading Impressionist artists, Lachman first exhibited in the Paris Autumn Salon in 1912, and later five of his works were purchased by the French Government for the Musée du Luxembourg. He was later awarded the Légion d'Honneur by the French government.
In 1925, he was convinced by his friend, the director Rex Ingram, to join him as assistant director on the film “Mare Nostrum.” Later on his own, he directed such films as “Dante's Inferno” (1932), which began the film career of Rita Hayworth and went on to direct some 40 films in total. He worked as a director in France and England before settling in Hollywood in 1933. He returned to painting landscapes in the late 1950s. His works are held in a number of private and public collections.
