Ferdinand Bac

Life & Legacy

Ferdinand-Sigismond Bach, known as Ferdinand Bac, (15 August 1859, Stuttgart, Germany - 18 November 1952, Compiegne, France) was a German-French cartoonist, artist and writer, son of an illegitimate nephew of the Emperor Napoleon. As a young man, he mixed in the fashionable world of Paris of the Belle Époque, and was known for his caricatures, which appeared in popular journals. He also travelled widely in Europe and the Mediterranean. In his fifties, he began a career as a landscape gardener. The gardens that he created at Les Colombières in Menton on the French Riviera are now designated as a Monument Historique. He also wrote voluminously about social, historical and political subjects, but his work has been largely forgotten.