Pierre Blanc was born in Luxembourg City to a long-established family of craftspeople. He attended first the Athénée and then the École d'Artisans de l'État where he began his professional training. He continued his education abroad at the art schools in Paris (École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts) and Munich (Königliche Kunstgewerbeschule). In 1898, he was appointed professor of drawing and painting at the École d'Artisans. In 1902 he enrolled at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. He worked at the École d'Artisans until 1937, with a break from 1912 to 1917, when he was a lecturer at the Lycée de Jeunes Filles in Luxembourg City.

In 1903, he married Marie-Louise David from Brussels. The couple had two children but separated during the First World War.

Blanc's work is particularly prolific and versatile, encompassing painting, watercolour, pastel, charcoal, drawing, Indian ink, engraving, caricature, ornamentation, as well as illustration of books, schoolbooks, calendars, and magazines. Drawing plays an essential role in his work. He mastered several techniques, including graphite pencil, charcoal, and sanguine. As a drawing teacher, he taught freehand drawing, plaster drawing, ornamental theory, and artistic drawing.

Blanc experimented with a variety of styles throughout his career, including academic, realist, romantic, post-impressionist, and art nouveau. His interest in painting led him to travel abroad early in his life to further his artistic knowledge. In Paris, he discovered impressionism and began using lighter colours, but the structure of his compositions remained academic, as illustrated by the painting Au jardin from 1913.

In terms of subject matter, the artist created an astonishing number of portraits and, to a lesser extent, landscapes, views of castles, monuments, and national sites, but also history paintings. Portraits were his favourite genre. They are realistically executed, academic in style, and occasionally coloured. Blanc emphasised the human character traits that were deemed distinctive of the various social classes (nobility, bourgeoisie, army, peasantry) in his time with great simplicity. Women are a major focus in this area, as evidenced by a full-length portrait in the art nouveau style (Portrait en pied de Clémence Peltier, 1911). He also created portraits of his colleagues, such as Nicolas Welter (Portrait de Nicolas Welter, 1940) and Auguste Trémont (Portrait d'Auguste Trémont, 1905), as well as of children. He also dabbled in caricature.

His passion for history enabled him to create large historical compositions. He created history paintings, in which he attempted to depict important scenes from the history of Luxembourg (e.g., Le maraudage de la ville par les Bourguignons, 1929). In 1938, was hired by the state to make replicas of historical works for the State Museums in Prague. He reproduced illustrious paintings relating to the history of the Grand Duchy, with a particular fondness for the Luxembourgish dynasty. At the same time, he depicted contemporary history, e.g., L'invasion allemande in 1914. He also enjoyed drawing national monuments and castles (Clervaux, Wiltz, Vianden, Beaufort, Bourglinster, Brandenbourg and the suburbs of the Luxembourgish capital), as well as industrial sites. Blanc's landscape representations can be divided into two groups. On the one hand, his paintings created in France and Luxembourg are influenced by impressionism, such as the views of the park of Tervuren and Lake Geneva, landscapes of Brittany, and views of Prague. On the other hand, he also practised plein-air and nature painting. At the age of 17, he designed the stained-glass windows for the Mousel-Brauerei stand at the 1889 Exposition Universelle in Paris. In addition, he designed stamps for the Post Office (1906, 1907, 1925, 1930), medals, as well as the banknotes of the State Treasury in 1926 (20 francs), 1927 (100 francs), and 1929 (20 francs). He created several vase designs for Villeroy & Boch Septfontaines.

During his lifetime, Blanc participated in several group exhibitions in his native country, but also abroad. Between 1900 and 1938, he attended the Cercle artistique's yearly Salons in Luxembourg. Abroad, he attended the Salon des Artistes Français in Paris from 1911 to 1913. He participated in the Paris Expositions Universelles twice, in 1889 and almost fifty years later, in 1937. Meanwhile, in 1910, he attended the International Exposition in Brussels. After his death, Blanc was often selected to illustrate the history of Luxembourgish art, e.g., in 1981, as part of the exhibition La représentation de la femme dans la peinture luxembourgeoise (jusqu'enl 1945) at Villa Vauban, or in the exhibition 150 Ans d'art luxembourgeois at the National Museum of History and Art (MNHA) in 1989.

During his long career, Blanc collaborated with important national artists and craftspeople of his time. As a teacher, he trained numerous students at the École d'Artisans beginning in 1898, including Joseph Kutter, Jean Schaack and Auguste Trémont. As early as 1903, he was, together with Guido Oppenheim and Frantz Seimetz, one of the " Open-Air Painters (of Hallerbach) ". In 1909, he designed the large relief on the façade of the Cercle Municipal in Luxembourg City, which was later sculpted by Pierre Federspiel (1864 - 1924). He collaborated with Michel Haagen on the commemorative plaque in the open hall of the "Denzelt" in Echternach. He designed the exterior of the Luxembourgish Pavilion, a bronze bas-relief depicting a panoramic view of Luxembourg City, alongside Aloyse Deitz, Ernest Grosber, Albert Kratzenberg and Léon Nosbusch, for the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1937. He worked with sculptor Henri Demuth to create the coat of arms of John the Blind in the crypt of Notre-Dame Cathedral. Finally, in 1936, he worked with author Auguste Liesch to create the illustrations for the children's book D'Maus Ketti. 

In Luxembourg, his works are featured in several collections, including the the MNAHA, the 2 Museums of Luxembourg City, the City of Esch-sur-Alzette, the National Library of Luxembourg (BNL) and the Maison du Grand-Duc.

Blanc left some traces in the country's public spaces. In 1909, he designed the large relief on the façade of the Cercle Municipal, which still stands on Place d'Armes in the capital. The relief depicts Countess Ermesinde granting the Charter of Freedom to Luxembourg City.

In 1893, Blanc co-founded the Cercle Artistique de Luxembourg (CAL) and served as its president from 1906 to 1910 and from 1919 to 1927. Blanc was a co-founder and vice-president of the Société des amis des musées au Luxembourg beginning and member of the Association of Decorative Arts (ARDECO) in 1926.

In 1910, he received a bronze medal at the Exposition Universelle (Universal Painting and Sculpture Competition). In 1911, Blanc was also awarded the Grand Duke Adolphe Prize. In Luxembourg, he was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Oak Crown, and in Belgium a Knight of the Legion of Honour, an Officer of the Order of Leopold II, and an Officer of Public Instruction. He received a commemorative diploma for his participation in the International Exhibition in Brussels in 1935.

Nowadays, Blanc is rightly regarded as one of the country's most renowned artists, a pivotal figure in the history of Luxembourgish art. Blanc was an excellent illustrator, and as such, there is no doubt about his importance as a teacher, having instructed a whole generation of artists who were able to pursue their artistic studies abroad. In addition, his portraits, caricatures, and drawings bear witness to the history of his time.

Works cited

"Pierre Blanc." Luxemburger Wort 03.07.1917 : 2. Print.

Bisdorff, Georgette. "La collection luxembourgeoise du Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art. Pierre Blanc." Ons Stad 67 (2001) : 32-33. Print.

Dollar, Jacques. "Des portraits inédits de Pierre Blanc." Die Warte 23.03.2000: 1. Print.

Kohn, Jo.   "L'artiste peintre Pierre Blanc, créateur d'ex-libris." in : Ex libris : bulletin de liaison du Cercle Pierre Roberti 19 (1996) : 6. Print. 

1. S. "Ehrenprofessor Pierre Blanc.“ Luxemburger Wort 01.04.1946 : 2. Print.

Mousset, Jean-Luc, Degen, Ulrike, Yegles-Becker, Isabelle, Becker, Alain, Linden, André, Thewes, Guy, and Musée national d'histoire et d'art. Un petit parmi les grands : Le Luxembourg aux Expositions Universelles de Londres à Shanghai (1851-2010) :  exposition au Musée national d'histoire et d'art Luxembourg du 13 mai au 5 septembre 2010. Luxembourg: Musée national d'histoire et d'art, 2010. Print.

Thill, Edmond. Pierre Blanc : 1872-1946. Luxembourg: Édition Comité Alstad, 2017. Print.

Tockert, Jos.  "Catalogue 100 ans de peinture luxembourgeoise 1800-1900 : exposition aux Musée de l’Musée d’État du 3 au 18 juillet 1949." Journal inconnu. Luxembourg 1949 : page unknown. Print.

[1]The term "Open-air painters (Hallerbach)" refers informally to a small group of painters (Pierre Blanc, Guido Oppenheim and Frantz Seimetz) who worked "en plein-air and from nature" from 1903 onwards in Hallerbach (named after the stream that makes its way through the forest of one of the most picturesque sites in Luxembourg's Little Switzerland, considered a local version of the famous artists' colonies that existed at that time throughout Europe (Ahrenshoop, Schwann, and Worpswede in Germany, Laethem-Saint-Martin in Belgium, St Ives in the UK, Skagen in Denmark).