Herman Jean Joseph Richir

Herman Jean Joseph Richir (1866–1942) was a Belgian academic painter and influential art educator best known for his refined portraits of high-society women, nudes, and decorative compositions characterized by elegance, luminous color, and technical precision. Trained under Gustave Biot, Charles Hermans, and Jean-François Portaels at the Académie royale des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, he gained early recognition by winning second prize in the Belgian Prix de Rome (1886). Richir later became a professor of life drawing and painting at the Brussels academy, eventually serving as its director, where he shaped the next generation of Belgian artists. Alongside portraiture, he also produced landscapes and still lifes, sometimes signing commercial lithographs and posters under the pseudonym “Hamner.” Beyond his artistic achievements, Richir was born in Ixelles, lived in Schaerbeek and later Uccle, was married to Marthe Weber, and had three children, remaining a respected figure in Belgian cultural circles until his death in 1942.