Louis Dewis (1872–1946) was the pseudonym of Belgian Post-Impressionist painter Louis DeWachter, who was also an innovative and highly successful businessman. He helped organize and managed the first department store chain.
He was born Isidore Louis DeWachter in Leuze, Belgium, the eldest son among the seven children of Isidore Louis DeWachter and Eloise Desmaret DeWachter. The father went by Isidore, while the future Dewis was called Louis. The name "DeWachter" has Flemish roots, however Louis DeWachter always considered himself a Walloon.
Isidore and his two brothers (Benjamin and Modeste) originated the idea of the chain department store when they formed Maisons Dewachter (Houses of Dewachter) in 1868, which they formally incorporated as the Belgian firm Dewachter frères (Dewachter Brothers) on 1 January 1875. For business purposes, they had decided not to use the capital "W" in the family name and because the chain became so famous, published references to the family would also be spelled "Dewachter". By the time of Dewis's death, the family had adopted the spelling "Dewachter" as well.
Maisons Dewachter introduced the idea of ready-made – or ready-to-fit – clothing for men and children, and specialty clothing such as riding apparel and beachwear. Isidore owned 51% of the company, while his brothers split the remaining 49%. They started with four locations: the Walloon city of Leuze (where Louis was born), La Louvière and two at Mons. Under Isidore's (and later Louis') leadership, Maisons Dewachter would become one of the most recognized names in Belgium and France.
Soon after the company was formed, Isidore and his family moved to Liège to open another branch. It was in that industrial city that Louis established a lifelong friendship with Richard Heintz (fr:Richard Heintz) (1871–1929), who also became an internationally known landscape artist. Heintz is considered the outstanding representative of the Liège school of landscape painting, a movement that greatly influenced Dewis's early work.
When Louis was 14, the family moved to Bordeaux, France, where Isidore established what would be the chain's flagship store. Louis, who had begun his studies at the Athénée Royal Liège, continued lycée (high school) at Bordeaux. For the rest of his life, he would remain an étranger – a Belgian citizen living in France.
Louis DeWachter married Bordeaux socialite Elisabeth Marie Florigni (12 August 1873 - 25 August 1952) on 16 July 1896. Elisabeth was the daughter of Joseph-Jules Florigni (1842 - 14 April 1919) and Rose Lesfargues Florigni (1843 - 11 September 1917).
There was a feeling among some members of the Florigni family, which traced its roots back to the court of Catherine de' Medici, that "Babeth" had "married down."
Jules Florigni administered the Bordeaux regional newspapers the Girond and La Petite Gironde and was Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur (Knight of the French Legion of Honor).
Elisabeth's brother, Robert (1881–1945), authored some 30 popular novels, several stage plays and at least ten screen plays. He was also a Paris-based journalist on the staff of La Petite Gironde and, like his father, Robert Florigni was named Chevalier de la Légion d’Honneur.
In 1919, Dewis's older daughter, Yvonne Elisabeth Marie, (23 Sep 1897, Toulouse, France - 19 Feb 1966, Saint Petersburg, Florida, USA) a student at the University of Bordeaux where she met and, after a whirlwind courtship, married Bradbury Robinson (1884–1949), a graduate student from America. He was a widowed army officer (a combat veteran of the Great War) and a medical doctor who, after being discharged in the United States, had returned to France to continue his studies. The couple would travel around Western Europe as Dr. Robinson oversaw immigrant screening for the U.S. Public Health Service. In 1906, Robinson had gained fame in the United States for having thrown the first forward pass in an American football game. The couple moved to the United States in 1926. They had seven children together, and Yvonne also gained a stepson from her husband's first marriage (his first wife having died in 1914).
In her memoirs, Yvonne remembers that in the early years of Dewis's career, her mother regarded her father's painting with benign indifference. She writes that Elisabeth DeWachter was pleased with her husband's choice of "hobbies" in one sense, telling her friends, "at least it's not noisy."
As the years passed, Elisabeth took more interest. It was she who maintained Dewis's scrapbook of critical reviews for three decades.
His younger daughter and only other child, Andrée Marguerite Elisabeth (24 September 1903 in Rouen, France - 11 May 2002 in Paris), married businessman Charles Jérôme Ottoz (1903–1993) in 1925, who proved to be less than supportive of his talented father-in-law.
Ottoz had his own connections to the art world. He was the namesake of his grandfather Jérôme (1819–1885), the well-known Paris color merchant and art collector (especially of Corots) who loved to show his paintings to visitors at his shop on the rue Pigalle. Ottoz's grandfather was also the subject of the famous portrait painted in 1876 by Edgar Degas.
A serious student of art, Andrée was passionate in her admiration of her father's work. As Yvonne lived in the States during the last 20 years of Dewis's life, Andrée was the artist's only child to witness the most important years of his career. She was so emotionally involved in his painting that one day Dewis wondered aloud whether his daughter would have loved him as much, "if I'd been a grocer." Years later, Andrée tearfully recalled assuring her father that she would.
Life as an artist delayed, success in business immediate
Young Louis had displayed an interest (and astonishing talent) in art at the age of 8 – but Isidore was enraged at the thought that his offspring might waste his time with something as useless as painting. In a vain attempt to break his young son of his "bad habit," he would, on occasion, throw away or burn the boy’s canvases, paints and brushes.