Eugénie Hainard-Bechard

The mother of Robert Hainard, a painter, she painted portraits and landscapes.

Her ancestors included southerners, Savoyards and Fribourgers, which did not prevent her from being born in Geneva.

"She lost her father at the age of three and was brought up by an uncle in an environment that did not suit her and where her adolescence was joyless. Her entry into our art schools was her real birth. It was there that her sensitivity, her heart and her imagination were finally satisfied.

There she met Philippe Hainard and after graduation they married and had four children: Robert, Beatrice, Claude and Florence. After their marriage, she lived at 15 rue Charles-Galland before moving to a plush house with a large garden in Drize. After her husband's death, she returned to live in the city of Geneva, at 8 Boulevard de la Tour, with her daughter Florence.

At the professional courses, she taught drawing to dressmakers, milliners, saleswomen, waiters, pastry cooks, etc. She had an authority that held its own. She had an authority which was due in large part to her well timed voice. According to the headmaster himself, "you could have heard a fly flying when you passed Madame Hainard's class". Huge boy butchers, who terrified the male teachers, accompanied her home to carry her packages. How did she manage to impose herself so? She didn't say a word out of turn, never made a sudden move, her gaze remained calm and benevolent. But when a guy was heckling or lazing about, she simply ignored him, only dealing with those who were really working. She had up to 28 hours of teaching a week and the maid would bring her newborn baby to her at break time so that she could nurse it in the caretaker's lodge.

She was a member of the Society of Women Painters and Sculptors from its foundation and regularly participated in exhibitions from 1912 onwards.