Élie Faure

In 1888, he joined his brothers Léonce and Jean-Louis in Paris and enrolled at the Lycée Henri-IV, where he had as classmates in philosophy class Léon Blum, R. Berthelot, Gustave Hervé and Louis Laloy.

On May 3, 1899, Élie Faure presented his doctoral thesis in medicine which dealt with an innovative treatment for lupus.

[2] He also publicly engaged in political battles of the time, taking sides with Dreyfus and participating in socialist movements.

In 1902, Élie Faure began to publish articles in L'Aurore, a Parisian literary and socialist newspaper.

During these times he met with Gustave Geffroy, Frantz and Francis Jourdain, Eugène Carrière, Antoine Bourdelle and Auguste Rodin.

Between 1905 and 1909, he delivered a series of lectures on the history of art at La Fraternelle university in the 3rd arrondissement of Paris.

This monumental work, which he reworked several times, held a lyrical style and retraced the evolution of architecture, sculpture, painting and domestic arts from prehistory to the beginning of the 20th century.

In 1931, he traveled the world, during which he met the painter Diego Rivera in Mexico, discovered the United States, Japan, China, India and Egypt.

Élie Faure, worried about the rise of fascism during the 1930s, joined the committee of anti-fascist intellectuals after the anti-parliamentarist street protests in Paris organized by far-right leagues on the 6 February 1934 crisis.

Élie Faure in 1900
One illustration from Élie Faure's History of art (1921): Cordova (8th Century); interior of the great mosque