Georges Maroniez Art

Georges Maroniez studied law while also taking courses at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts under Pierre Billet. After finishing his studies, he pursued a career in the judiciary concurrently with his painting, where he focused on peasant genre scenes. These often centered around coastal life, port scenes of Flemish fishermen and life by the sea. Maroniez became particularly effective at dusk and twilight scenes, using translucent light to create drama and romance in his work. He was awarded Honorable Mention at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1891, became a member of the Société des Artists Français in 1889, achieved a 3rd class medal in 1905 and a 2nd class medal in 1906. In 1918, Maroniez was made a Knight of the Legion of Honor. As his career in painting was beginning to blossom in 1905, he resigned from the judiciary to focus all of his efforts on his art. Maroniez further achieved success as a landscape photographer and in 1891 designed and patented a camera he called The Sphynx that he used to photograph scenes throughout the Middle East, Mediterranean, and North Africa. He would also work with the camera for landscape studies that would later be reproduced in his studio on canvas. In 1914, Maroniez was drafted into the Great War and was separated from his family. As the Germans occupied North-East France, his wife was held hostage in the Holzminden internment camp of Lower Saxony through the ceasefire. Reunited, they moved to Paris in 1919 where he opened his studio and painted until he died in 1933 of a heart attack. Over 800 paintings are attributed to Maroniez, along with over 1600 photographs on glass held in the permanent collection of the Cambria museum.