Louis Auguste Lepere

Auguste-Louis Lepère (Paris, November 30, 1849 - Domme, November 20, 1918) was a French painter and etcher. Auguste Lepère is also considered the leader in the creative revival of wood engraving in Europe. He was apprenticed at the age of thirteen to the English wood engraver Joseph Burn Smeeton who established his studio in Paris. Lepère desired foremost to be a painter and submitted his paintings to the annual Salons but he worked for thirty years as an illustrator, earning his livelihood producing wood engraving illustrations for L'Art, Monde illustré, La Revue illustrée and L'Illustration. Lepère continued working with the wood matrix, the blocks facile in the hands of this master, producing individual wood engravings. Between 1889 and 1901, his favorite subjects were the urban scenes around contemporary Paris—the bridges, cathedrals and boulevards.