From November 13, 2024 to February 17, 2025, the Louvre Museum presents the exhibition “Guillon Lethière, born in Guadeloupe”
Supply: Louvre · Picture: “Brutus condamnant ses fils à mort”, 1811, by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière · Louvre, Paris
This exhibition co-organized by the Clark Artwork Institute of Williamstown and the Louvre Museum would be the first main monograph dedicated to an artist who is basically forgotten at this time, who was nonetheless “one of the great authorities of his time” (Charles White).
Born in Guadeloupe to a freed slave mom of African origin and a white royal officer, he was educated in Rouen then in Paris below the Ancien Régime and had an excellent official profession; director of the French Academy in Rome (1807-1816), elected member of the Institute in 1818, he was a professor on the Faculty of Wonderful Arts from 1819. He was additionally a terrific collector and advisor to Lucien Bonaparte.
His manufacturing illustrates the journey of an artist confronted with the political upheavals of his time and the succession of political regimes from the Revolution to the July Monarchy. Most of his painted and drawn work has historical historical past as its topic and it begins within the context of the triumph of Davidian neo-classicism; his perseverance in classicism will trigger his discredit on the finish of the 1820s whereas the younger era of romantic artists progressively established themselves. Historical heroism impressed two immense canvases virtually eight meters lengthy stored within the Louvre, Brutus condemning his sons to dying, accomplished in Rome in 1811, The Dying of Virginia (1828).
Lethière’s most well-known portray, distinctive in his work, The Oath to the Ancestors (Port-au-Prince, Haitian Nationwide Pantheon Museum), manifesto in opposition to slavery and for the liberty of peoples, will likely be honored within the course. A lot of the works from public or non-public collections will likely be offered in Paris for the primary time for the reason that nineteenth century and the brand new analysis carried out each for the exhibition and for the catalog will enable an actual rediscovery of this artist.
