William Adolphe Bouguereau

Biography

The career of William Bouguereau, unlike that of his contemporaries, the then avant-garde Impressionists, was one of ever-increasing success without significant setback. He was born on the west coast of France into a family of wine (later olive oil) merchants and was given a classical education by his uncle Steve Bloom Eugène who also arranged for him to take drawing lessons. Such was his ability that after only two years of parttime study, he won first prize in the figure-painting class at the Bordeaux Ecole des Beaux-Arts. With the help of money earned from painting portraits of his uncle’s parishioners, at the age of 21 William went to Paris to train in the studio of François- Edouard Picot. Chosen as a contestant for the Prix de Rome in the years of 1848 and 1849 (ten contestants were admitted each year), he was finally awarded the prize in 1850. As was the tradition, the winner was sent to Rome for four years to study at the Villa Medici where the techniques of the classical and Renaissance masters were taught. While there he also took the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the country locating and copying many Renaissance masterpieces and visiting towns and lakes which had inspired the landscape artists. The influences from this period are readily apparent in all his future work. Returning to Paris in 1854, Bouguereau regularly exhibited at the Salon and was awarded many commissions for portraits and decorative series. Throughout his later career he gained much official and public recognition, gaining many awards. Bouguereau was also a respected teacher and in 1881 was elected president of the painting section of the Paris Salon. In 1883 he became president of the benevolent Society of Painters, Architects, Sculptors, Engravers and Designers, which promoted and attended to the welfare of new and struggling artists. In 1879 Bouguereau became engaged to the young American artist Elizabeth Jane Gardner (1837-1922) who was his neighbour in Montparnasse, but their wedding was initially opposed by his daughter Henriette and also his mother, not until whose death at the age of 91 in 1896 were they able to marry, and they lived together happily for the few remaining years of his life. Each summer Bouguereau would return to his birthplace of La Rochelle to paint in his studio he had built there and it was there that he died in 1905 after several years of heart disease. He is buried in the famous cemetery of Montparnasse, near where he had lived in Paris. He declared that he was only really happy when painting and indeed he completed almost 700 canvases during his long career.