Maurice Ehlinger

Maurice Ambroise Ehlinger was a painter and sculptor who studied in Nancy and Paris under François Flameng, Jules Adler and Lucien Simon. In World War I, he served as a master gunner and was gassed. In 1921, he decorated the stairway of the Sorbonne together with Flameng. Ehlinger was appointed a professor and received various awards. In 1944, he lost many of his works, when his house was burnt down during the German retreat. Until 1951, he lived in Saint-Dié-des-Vosges, but later in Paris. From the 1950s he traveled extensively in North Africa, Italy and Spain. Ehlinger specialized in portraits, mainly women, children and contemporary personalities. Other motifs were nudes, still lifes and flowers, but also religious topics. He was known also for his sensitive but powerful rendering of the female form, especially in his nudes.

Le skieuse, painted in 1931 in oil on canvas, is a portrait of Renée Virginie Erard, Ehlinger’s wife, skiing near Bonhomme in the Vosges. Today it is located in the Pierre-Noël Museum in Saint-Dié, where Ehlinger spent many years of the first part of his life.