Curated playlist
French male painters
- Joseph-Noël SylvestreJoseph-Noël Sylvestre painted a barbarian sword raised over a fallen Rome.
- Pierre LescotOn the 10th of September 1578, the French architect Pierre Lescot died. He worked in the French Renaissance, and he left Paris two landmarks, the Fontaine des Innocents and the Lescot wing of the Louvre. The wing set the standard for…
- Edgar DegasEdgar Degas showed only one sculpture in his lifetime. After he died, heirs found 150 wax figures in his studio.
- Claude MonetImpressionism began as a critic's insult. Claude Monet's painting Impression, Sunrise gave it the name.
- Paul CézannePaul Cézanne was rejected by the Salon de Paris every year from 1864 to 1869.
- Henri MatisseHenri Matisse did not pick up a paintbrush until he was nineteen. He had been trained as a lawyer.
- Pierre-Auguste RenoirPainter Renoir was once mistaken for a spy and nearly thrown into the Seine. A man he had once protected stepped in.
- François BouchotFrançois Bouchot died in 1842 while preparing murals for a new chapel at Luxembourg Palace.
- Édouard ManetÉdouard Manet's judge father planned law or the navy for him, but he became a painter.
- Marcel DuchampIn 1917, Marcel Duchamp submitted a signed urinal to a New York show, and the committee turned it away.
- Paul GauguinPaul Gauguin was a stockbroker who painted only on weekends. A 1882 market crash pushed him toward full-time art.
- Édouard CibotAround 1863, painter Édouard Cibot walked away from church art to paint landscapes.
- Eugène DelacroixTalleyrand privately considered himself the real father of the painter Eugène Delacroix.
- Marc ChagallMarc Chagall fled Europe in 1941 on a ship carrying 119 refugee children. He taught them drawing.
- Jean CocteauJean Cocteau recorded his 1929 recovery from opium in a diary of drawings and withdrawal notes.
- Gustave MoreauGustave Moreau asked that flowers for his funeral go to another woman's grave.
- Henri Félix Emmanuel PhilippoteauxA Gettysburg cyclorama by a French father and son reportedly drew half a million people in a year.
- Jacques-Louis DavidNapoleon never sat for David's painting of his own coronation. Pope Pius VII did, and blessed the painter.
- Jean-Baptiste DebretPainter Jean-Baptiste Debret helped design the first flag for an independent Brazil. He worked with Jose Bonifacio.
- Édouard DetailleÉdouard Detaille was described as the "semi-official artist of the French army," a label very few painters have ever earned. Jean-Baptiste Édouard Detaille was born on the 5th of October 1848 and died on the 23rd of December 1912. In those…
- Jean ClouetJean Clouet, who is also recorded as Janet or Jehannot, painted the faces of the French court under King Francis I, and yet not one surviving picture has been proved to be his. He was born around 1485 in the Burgundian Netherlands and did…
- Antoine-Jean GrosPainter Antoine-Jean Gros drowned himself in a river outside Paris after reading reviews of his final exhibition.
- François ClouetA portrait by court painter François Clouet helped inspire Lévi-Strauss's theory of art as miniature models.
- Horace VernetHorace Vernet was born inside the Louvre while his parents sheltered there during the French Revolution.
- Jean-Auguste-Dominique IngresThe French phrase "violon d'Ingres" comes from a painter's violin. It means a person's second skill.
- Jean-Léon GérômeJean-Léon Gérôme taught more than 2,000 students, including Mary Cassatt and Thomas Eakins.
- Charles de SteubenPoet Friedrich Schiller saw the talent of Charles de Steuben when he was a young court page.
- François GérardFrançois Gérard painted for Napoleon, then for the kings who replaced him. He served both regimes as court painter.
- Gustave DoréBritish critics disliked Gustave Doré's book of London, saying he drew its poverty. Van Gogh painted one scene.
- Paul DelarochePaul Delaroche stopped showing his paintings in public in 1837, when he was one of France's most celebrated painters.
- Louis Carrogis CarmontelleLouis Carrogis Carmontelle built a machine that rolled painted landscapes past a backlit window.