Gust of Wind at Étretat (Coup de vent à Étretat)

Art Historical Context

Eugène Delâtre’s *Gust of Wind at Étretat* captures the dramatic force of nature along Normandy’s coastline around 1898. The print depicts the famed cliffs of Étretat being battered by a sudden gale, with churning seas and windswept skies conveying a sense of movement and immediacy. Delâtre, a skilled French printmaker active in the late nineteenth century, drew on the area’s long-standing appeal to artists seeking to portray the raw energy of the sea. Executed in etching and aquatint, the work highlights the expressive potential of these intaglio techniques. Delâtre used tonal washes of aqua...

About the Artist

Eugène Delâtre · 1864–1938

Eugène Delâtre (1864–1938) was a French painter, etcher, and printmaker who became one of the most important innovators of color etching in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born into an artistic family as the son of Auguste Delâtre, the most sought-after printer of fine etchings in Paris, Eugène quickly mastered his father's technical expertise while developing his own distinctive artistic ...