Explores the lasting legacy of the work of the French artist Eugene Louis Charvot, best known for his paintings of sun-filled North African street scenes and the French countryside.
This publication features the work of French artist Eugene Louis Charvot (1847-1924), a distinguished painter and printmaker. Recognised in his time, Charvot’s work was lost to history and has been rediscovered in Jacksonville Florida. A fascinating individual, Charvot practiced medicine for many years but stated that his first love was art. Thus, despite the rigors of a prestigious medical career, Charvot devoted himself to the pursuit of his muse throughout his life. Inspired by the serene countryside of his youth, Charvot became a landscapist, and made his debut in 1876 at the annual Salon in Paris. Spending his medical career in the French military, Charvot was posted in colonial Tunisia (1885-89) and Algeria (1892-96), where he documented the life around him and sent oils back to Paris for entry in the SalonsAfter Charvot’s death in 1924, his work fell into obscurity. His family preserved his award-winning etchings, his landscapes and Orientalist paintings as well as his unpublished diary, family letters and sketchbooks. Charvot’s daughter, Yvonne Charvot Barnett, brought the majority of his work to Jacksonville, Florida where the discovery of these extensive holdings has led to a reevaluation of Charvot’s work and a resurrection of the reputation of this accomplished artist. The works now reside in the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens, as the Charvot Collection. Through an in-depth review of his career as an artist, this new volume highlights Charvot’s breadth of processes, productivity and inspiration in painting, etching and drawing. With a focus on family portraits, pastoral country scenes, nocturnes and North African genre and street scenes, the book weaves family photographs, journal entries and excerpts from family letters to recreate the world view that informed Charvot’s oeuvre AUTHOR: Susan M. Gallo is associate director of education at the Cummer Museum of Art and Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida. She is a former fellow at both the Toledo Museum of Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art. 60 colour illustrations