Jules Lion (c. 1806–1866) was a photographer, lithographer, and pastel painter born in Paris,Consistoire de Paris, 1809-1910 Census, 22. See who exhibited at the Paris Salon before emigrating to the United States in 1837. He eventually opened a daguerreotype studio in New Orleans in 1840, one year after the invention of the process. On March 14, 1840, the New Orleans Bee published a notice about an exhibition of Lion's daguerreotypes at the St. Charles Museum, the first documented photography exhibition in Louisiana. Lion "became one of the first in America to draw a lithograph directly from a daguerreotype."
While Lion, is listed as a free man of color in six commercial city directories, all other documents civic, legal, and in newspapers and the diocese omit any racial designation which was odd for 19th-century New Orleans. He introduced "the process", also painted, and his main focus was a series of lithographed portraits of prominent Louisianans and people connected to Louisiana history, including John James Audubon and Andrew Jackson. His most notable work is a pastel depicting the "first painting known to American art history in which a white man openly displays affection for his black child." Lion taught art at the Louisiana College and, late in his life, created lithographed Confederate sheet music covers.
References
Further reading
Exhibition catalog from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Jules Lion, who at that time was thought to have been Black
External links