Hugo Breul (full name Hugo August Bernhard Breul) was born in 1854 in Saalfeld Germany. He studied art at the Royal Academy of Art in Munich, eventually coming to the United States. Before setting up a studio in Providence he studied with artists Gustave Brulanger and William Merritt Chase and was a member of the Art Students League in New York City. Breul became a member of Providence Art Club in 1883. His earliest dated painting located in Rhode Island is at the Rhode Island Historical Society and is an oil portrait of William Gammell, c.1880. He was also a member of the Providence Watercolor Society founded in 1896. He gained notoriety in Providence for his paintings of various subject-matters and in 1899 was commissioned to paint a portrait of the president of the Providence Athenæum, which hangs in the Athenæum’s Art Room to this day. Breul appears to have numerous attributed paintings circulating on auction sites, however there is little written about him. He died in 1910.
