Curated playlist
Members of the Académie des beaux-arts
- Orson WellesOrson Welles burned ten reels of his own Don Quixote film. He felt the 1969 Moon landings made its ending obsolete.
- Roman PolanskiRoman Polanski survived the Holocaust by pretending to be Catholic. As a boy in Poland, he memorized prayers to hide.
- Eugène DelacroixTalleyrand privately considered himself the real father of the painter Eugène Delacroix.
- Gustave MoreauGustave Moreau asked that flowers for his funeral go to another woman's grave.
- Jacques-Louis DavidNapoleon never sat for David's painting of his own coronation. Pope Pius VII did, and blessed the painter.
- Antoine-Jean GrosPainter Antoine-Jean Gros drowned himself in a river outside Paris after reading reviews of his final exhibition.
- 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.
- François GérardFrançois Gérard painted for Napoleon, then for the kings who replaced him. He served both regimes as court painter.
- Louis ViscontiLouis Visconti designed Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides in Paris. He first planned the city's 1840 decorations.
- Paul DelarochePaul Delaroche stopped showing his paintings in public in 1837, when he was one of France's most celebrated painters.