Jules WIELHORSKI was born in Nancy in 1875.
His talent for drawing was noticed as a child and he quickly became the best pupil of Emile Larcher, a renowned drawing teacher at the Nancy School of Fine Arts.
In 1895, he won the First Prize of drawing and painting of the city and an article is dedicated to him as "Young Artist" in the magazine "La Lorraine-Artiste" of January 27 of that year.
Admitted to compete at the Beaux-Arts de Paris, he was awarded first prize on July 25 of the same year and accumulated prizes and medals at the rue Bonaparte.
Wielhorski refused the temptation of historical painting and quickly detached himself from the studio bosses who reigned at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts to go towards a much more original style, closer to Renoir in his portraits, whom he admired. He was a very reluctant pupil of the painter Léon Bonnat, and in 1897 he entered a Prometheus in chains for the Grand Prix de Rome, but only came third in the competition.
His first important commission after this honorable failure was the restaurant of the Langham Hotel in Paris. Wielhorski gave a brilliant demonstration of his talents as a decorator in the "Art Nouveau" style. The artist received critical acclaim for his watery decor with birds and two female figures representing Spring and Autumn.
During the period between his graduation from the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and 1911, he multiplied his private commissions in Rouen, Paris and Joigny. The construction of a villa in Cap d'Ail by Alphonse Lenoir kept Wielhorski busy for a little over two years, working on the paintings of the house but also on the decoration of the pavements, the wrought iron, the stained glass windows and the furniture. For this native of Nancy, accustomed to the coldness of the Lorraine winter, the revelation of the light of the Côte d'Azur would be decisive for his palette.
This work at the villa "Primavera" will remain his masterpiece and in any case the most complete as it was understood at the time of Art Nouveau.
After the war, he became a drawing teacher in two schools in Paris and at the Manufacture de Sèvres and then at the Beaux-Arts in the capital while continuing his activity as a painter.
The artist died in 1961. His great-grandson Alain Wielhorski, born in Octeville (Manche) in 1950, is a well-known artist.
