Artists

Auguste Gorguet

French, 1862-1927

Gorguet was a French historical and allegorical painter who became one of the pillars of the French artistic establishment as the Academic world began to crumble in the years after the turn of the 20th century.

He was born in Paris and studied with Gustave Boulanger, Jean-Leon Gerome and Leon Bonnat, three of the best-known French painters and teachers of the era. Gorguet was a strong draftsman, a necessary attribute for a painter who painted subjects drawn from myth. Early in his career he did posters and paintings that captured the spirit of the Belle Epoche, including a famous work of the dancer Isadora Duncan. As the years went on he became a well-known muralist and his allegorical murals can be found in France as well as Boston and New York City.

After the conclusion of the savage First World War, he became one of the instigators of a massive project to paint a mural cycle of the war. Ultimately, this involved a army of painters who rendered more than 6,000 figures on what was then said to be the world's largest painting.