PAUL CAMILLE GUIGOU PAINTINGS FOR SALE & BIOGRAPHY
PAUL CAMILLE GUIGOU
French, 1840–1887
BIOGRAPHY
Paul Camille Guigou was born to a wealthy family in Villars-les-Apt in 1834. While initially training in a legal practice, “he gave in to his artistic bent for drawing and painting landscapes and was encouraged by Emile Loubon, a highly regarded painter of the herds of bulls in the Camargue region of Provence and director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Marseilles. His first trip to Paris in 1856 confirmed him in his vocation. His family resigned themselves to his decision, he left Provence and settled in Paris in 1862. Although he worked in Paris on a regular basis, homesickness for Provence forced him to return frequently. In 1866, he made a brief trip to Algeria, where he executed some landscapes. Having joined the army, he returned to Paris in 1871, becoming drawing teacher to Baroness Rothschild. However, after catching a chill, he died of a stroke at Lariboisière Hospital on 21 December 1871, aged 37.
“From 1854, Guigou regularly took part in the Bouches-du-Rhône art society's exhibitions, which brought the works of Couture, Jules Dupré, Corot, Monticelli and Millet together with those of local artists. In Paris, he exhibited in various Salons. Even though his work was in the Louvre, and despite the 1927 retrospective exhibition in Paris at the Musée du Luxembourg, Guigou fell into obscurity after his early death. However, after regular exhibitions in the Paris galleries, his fame began to spread after 1938, and he has now gained his rightful place [as] an inspired and individual artist among the many French 19th-century landscape painters. Since then, exhibitions have been dedicated to him in Marseilles in 1959, New York and Columbus in 1987 and the Toulon Museum in 1989. He has also been represented in collective exhibitions such as: Le Femme en Provence et en Mediterranée (Women in Provence and the Mediterranean), Fondations Regards de Provence, Broély Castle, Marseilles.
“In Provence, Guigou painted small, wooden panels, mainly in the valley of the Durance river, which he subsequently used for larger works. Lack of success forced him to give drawing and painting lessons. In the Île de France, he worked in the Seine and Loing valleys. In 1870, the review by the French art critic, Theodore Duret, helped to establish his [reputation]. Guigou did nothing to help raise his profile and his natural reserve, his dislike of society and even for the friendship of other artists meant that he remained almost unknown… Modest and stubborn, preferring to work alone, he was not influenced by any one particular school, but was a local artist, a painter of his Provençal homeland.” [Alfred Daber, “Paul Camille Guigou”, in Benezit, Dictionary of Artists, Paris, 2000, p. 859].
Museum Collections:
Musée Granet, Aix-en-Provence
Musée National des Beaux-Arts, Algiers
Musée de Picardie, Amiens
Musée Calvet, Avignon
Musée Départemental de l’Oise, Beauvais
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, MA
National Gallery of Australia, Canberra
Musée de Carcassonne, Carcassonne
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Cannes
Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH
Columbus Museum of Art, Columbus, OH
Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth, NH
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh
Stadtlisches Kunstmuseum, Frankfurt
Musée d’Art et d’Histoire, Geneva
Musée de Grenoble, Grenoble
Nebraska Art Association, Lincoln, NE
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Marseille
Musée Grobet-Labadie, Marseille
Musée Ziem, Martigues
Dixon Gallery and Gardens, Memphis, TN
Musée Fabre, Montpellier
Morgan Library & Museum, New York, NY
Ashmolean Museum, Oxford
Musée du Louvre, Paris
Musée d’Orsay, Paris
Musée du Petit Palais, Paris
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, CA
Musée du Périgord, Périgueux
Musée des Beaux-Arts, Poitiers
Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA
Musée de Toulon, Toulon
