William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Self-Portrait (1879)
Born	William-Adolphe Bouguereau
Nationality	French
Known for	Painter
Movement	Realism

William-Adolphe Bouguereau (November 30, 1825 – August 19, 1905) was a French academic painter.

Biography

Bouguereau was born in La Rochelle.

A student at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, he won the Prix de Rome in 1850 and his realistic genre paintings and mythological themes were exhibited at the annual exhibitions of the Paris Salon for his entire working life. Although he fell into disregard in the early 20th century, due perhaps to his staunch opposition to the Impressionists, there is a new appreciation for his work. In his lifetime, Bouguereau painted eight hundred and twenty-six paintings.

Detail from The Birth of Venus by Bouguereau.

In his own time, Bouguereau was considered to be one of the greatest painters in the world. In 1900, his contemporaries Degas and Monet reportedly named him as most likely to be remembered as the greatest 19th-century French painter by the year 2000, according to chairman Fred Ross of the Art Renewal Center - although with Degas' famous trenchant wit, and the aesthetic tendencies of the two Impressionists, it is possible the statement was meant as an ironic comment on the taste of the future public. Bouguereau's works were eagerly bought, at high prices, especially by American millionaires. After about 1920, Bouguereau fell into disrepute. Some assert this may have been consciously engineered by the new "art expert establishment", who resented his former opposition to new developments in painting, but it is likely that more profound societal factors were instrumental to this enormous shift in taste and sensibility. For decades, his name was not even mentioned in encyclopedias. Today, over one hundred museums throughout the world exhibit his works.

At a rather advanced age, Bouguereau was married for the second time, to fellow artist Elizabeth Jane Gardner Bouguereau, one of his pupils. He also used his influence to open many French art institutions to women for the first time, including the Académie française.

He died in La Rochelle.

Real name dilemma

W.Bouguereau signature (detail).

Sources on his full name are contradictory; some give William-Adolphe Bouguereau (composed name), William Adolphe Bouguereau (usual and civil-only names according to the French tradition), while others give Adolphe William Bouguereau (with Adolphe as the usual name). However, the artist used to sign his works simply as William Bouguereau (hinting "William" was his given name, whatever the order), or more precisely as "W.Bouguereau.date" (French alphabet) and later as "W-BOVGVEREAV-date" (Latin alphabet).

Exhibitions

His first modern exhibition appeared in 1974 at the New York Cultural Center as a curiosity. In 1984 the Borghi Gallery hosted the commercial show of his 23 oil paintings and 1 drawing. In the same year a major exhibition was organized by the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, in Canada. The exhibition opened at the Musée du Petit-Palais, in Paris, traveled to The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford, and concluded in Montréal. This was the beginning of renewal of interest about Bouguereau. In 1997 Mark Borghi and Laura Borghi organized an early Internet exhibition.

In 1979-1980, the company Royal Cornwall Ltd. produced a series of six china plates called "The Beauty of Bouguereau." The series featured one of Bouguereau's paintings on each of the plates. The plates were approximately 8 1/2 inches in diameter and limited to 19,500 copies of each plate. The plates were rimmed in 24-karat gold, individually numbered, and came with certificates.

• First plate: Lucie
• Second plate: (unknown)
• Third plate: (unknown)
• Fourth plate: Detail of Solange et Enfant or Rest (1890)
• Fifth plate: Colette
• Sixth plate: Jean Et Jeanette
• Knwon to be in the collection, but unknown which plate in sequence:
  • Detail of Breton Brother and Sister (1871)

Reviews

• Albert Boime: The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century (London, 1971).
• Aleska Celebonovic: Peinture kitsch ou réalisme bourgeois, l'art pompier dans le monde. Paris: Seghers, 1974.
• Art Pompier: Anti-Impressionism. New York: The Emily Lowe Gallery, Hofstra University, 1974.
• Mario Amaya (Forward), Robert Isaacson (catalogue and selection): William Adolphe Bouguereau. New York: New York Cultural Center, 1974.
• John Russell: Art: Cultural Center Honors Bouguereau. In New York Times, 1974.
• Louise d 'Argencourt and Douglas Druick: The Other Nineteenth Century. Ottawa: The National Gallery of Canada, 1978.
• James Harding: Les peintres pompiers. Paris: Flammarion, 1980.
• "The Bouguereau Market". The Art newsletter. January 6, 1981. pp. 6-8.
• Louise d'Argencourt and Mark Steven Walker: William Bouguereau. Montreal, Canada: The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1984.
• Robert and H. W. Jason Rosenblums: 19th Century Art. New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1984.
• Michael Gibson: Bouguereau's "Photo-Idealism". In International Herald Tribune, 1984.
• Grace Glueck: To Bouguereau, Art Was Strictly "The Beautiful. In The New York Times, 1985.
• Cécile Ritzenthaler: L'école des beaux art du XIXe siècle. édition Mayer, 1987
• Exhibition catalogue William Adolphe Bouguereau, L'Art Pompier. Borghi & Co., New York, 1991.

See also

Articles on individual paintings

• La Danse (1850)
• Alone in the World (Latest 1867)
• The Knitting Girl (1869)
• Nymphs and Satyr (1873)
• Cupidon (1875)
• The Birth of Venus (1879)
• Evening Mood (1882)
• The Nut Gatherers (1882)
• Le Printemps (The Return of Spring) (1886)
• The Shepherdess (1889)
• L'Amour et Psyché, enfants (1890)
• The Bohemian (1890)
• The Young Shepherdess (1895)

Other

• Art nouveau

External links

• Biography of William Bouguereau at the Art Renewal Center
• Works by William-Adolphe Bouguereau at the Art Renewal Center
• Web Museum
• Nymphs and Satyr
• Bouguereau Gallery at MuseumSyndicate
• Getty Research Institute material, including letters

Gallery

1850s

• 
  Dante And Virgil In Hell (1850)
• 
  A Portrait of Amelina Dufaud Bouguereau (1850)
• 
  A Portrait of Eugène Bouguereau (1850)
• 
  A Portrait of Geneviève Bouguereau (1850)
• 
  A Portrait of Léonie Bouguereau (1850)
• 
  Portrait of Monsieur M. (1850)
• 
  Fraternal Love (1851)
• 
  Arion on a Sea Horse (1855)
• 
  Bacchante on a Panther (1855)
• 
  The Dance (1856)
• 
  Charity (1859)
• 
  The Day of the Dead (1859)

1860s

• 
  Tobias Saying Good-Bye to his Father (1860)
• 
  Young Woman Contemplating Two Embracing Children (1861)
• 
  The Remorse of Orestes (1862)
• 
  The Prayer (1865)
• 
  Soup (1865)
• 
  Premières Caresses (1866)
• 
  Gypsy Girl with a Basque Drum (1867)
• 
  Tête d'Etude l'Oiseau (1867)
• 
  Yvonnette (1867)
• 
  The Bunch Of Grapes (1868)
• 
  Young Shepherdess (1868)
• 
  The Elder Sister (1869)
• 
  The Haymaker (1869)
• 
  The Knitting Girl (1869)
• 
  Maternal Admiration (1869)
• 
  Washerwomen of Fouesnant (1869)
• 
  Young Worker (1869)
• 
  Seule au monde (before 1867)

1870s

• 
  Bather (1870)
• 
  Breton Brother and Sister (1871)
• 
  Italian Girl Drawing Water (1871)
• 
  Young Mother Gazing At Her Child (1871)
• 
  Pendant l'Orage (1872)
• 
  The Proposal (1872)
• 
  Nymphs and Satyr (1873)
• The Spinner (1873)
  The Spinner (1873)
• 
  Child Braiding A Crown (1874)
• 
  Homer and his Guide (1874)
• 
  After the Bath (1875)
• 
  At the Edge of the Brook (1875)
• 
  Cupidon (1875)
• 
  Flora And Zephyr (1875)
• 
  Lullaby (1875)
• 
  The Virgin, Jesus & Saint John Baptist (1875)
• 
  Charity (1878)
• 
  The Nymphaeum (1878)
• 
  Return from the Harvest (1878)
• 
  At the Edge of the Brook (1879)
• 
  The Birth of Venus (1879)
• 
  Rest (1879)
• 
  Young Gypsies (1879)
• 
  La Frileuse (1879)
• 
  Tricoteuse (1879)
• 
  Mademoiselle Elizabeth Gardner (1879)
• 
  The Bather (1879)

1880s

• 
  The Flagellation of Our Lord Jesus Christ (1880)
• 
  Temptation (1880)
• 
  A Young Girl Defending Herself Against Eros (1880)
• 
  Dawn (1881)
• 
  Day (1881)
• 
  The Shepherdess (1881)
• 
  Song of the Angels (1881)
• Evening Mood(1882)
  Evening Mood(1882)
• 
  The Little Knitter (1882)
• 
  The Nut Gatherers (1882)
• 
  The Motherland (1883)
• 
  La Nuit (1883)
• 
  Biblis (1884)
• 
  Crown of Flowers (1884)
• 
  The Difficult Lesson (1884)
• 
  The Horseback Ride (1884)
• 
  Seated Nude (1884)
• 
  Lost Pleiad (1884)
• 
  The Youth of Bacchus (1884)
• 
  Love's Resistance (1885)
• 
  Young Girl Going to the Spring (1885)
• 
  The Young Shepherdess (1885)
• 
  Big Sis' (1886)
• 
  Return of Spring (1886)
• 
  Self-Portrait Presented To M. Sage (1886)
• 
  Thirst (1886)
• 
  Brother And Sister (1887)
• 
  Young Shepherdess Standing (1887)
• 
  Study: Head Of A Little Girl (1888)
• 
  L'Amour et Psyché, enfants (1889)
• 
  The Little Shepherdess (1889)
• 
  The Shepherdess (1889)
• 
  Whisperings of Love (1889)
• 
  Young Girl Crocheting (1889)

1890s

• 
  The Bohemian (1890)
• 
  A Little Coaxing (1890)
• 
  Love on the Look Out (1890)
• 
  The Broken Pitcher (1891)
• 
  The Goose Girl (1891)
• 
  Work Interrupted (1891)
• 
  The Invasion (1893)
• 
  Youth (1893)
• 
  After the Bath (1894)
• 
  Bacchante (1894)
• 
  Daisies (1894)
• 
  The Palm Leaf (1894)
• 
  The Abduction of Psyche (1895)
• 
  In Penitence (1895)
• 
  Not Too Much To Carry (1895)
• 
  The Song of the Nightingale (1895)
• 
  Spring Breeze (1895)
• 
  A Calling (1896)
• 
  At The Fountain (1897)
• 
  Compassion (1897)
• 
  Irène (1897)
• 
  The Curtsey (1898)
• 
  Head Of A Young Girl (1898)
• 
  Inspiration (1898)
• 
  Sewing (1898)
• 
  Elegy (1899)
• 
  Girl Holding Lemons (1899)
• 
  Mailice (1899)

1900s

• 
  The Virgin With Angels (1900)
• 
  Laurel Branch (1900)
• 
  Before The Bath (1900)
• 
  A Childhood Idyll (1900)
• 
  Two Sisters (1901)
• 
  Young Priestess (1902)
• 
  The Madonna of the Roses (1903)
• 
  Far Niente (1904)

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