Jean Antoine Théodore GUDIN
(Paris, 1802 – Boulogne-Billancourt, 1880)
The storm
Oil on canvas
Signed lower left
39 x 56 cm
Théodore GUDIN was born on August 15, 1802 in Paris. He is the younger brother of the painter Jean Louis GUDIN (1799-1823), a student of Horace VERNET and Anne-Louis GIRODET who died tragically at the age of twenty-four in Théodore's presence in a boating accident on the Seine.
Son of a general of the Empire, Théodore embraced a military career and entered the Naval Service, which he abandoned fairly quickly to embark for New York where he joined the American Navy. This was in 1819. He then had the opportunity to travel long distances and he went to London where he stayed in 1821 with Eugène ISABEY.
Back in Paris with the wish to become a painter like his brother, he went through the studio of GIRODET then GROS and made his debut at the Paris Salon of 1822 with no less than five paintings, honoring his own words: "To paint the sea, you have to have sailed". Two years later in 1824, he won the gold medal at the Salon at only twenty-two years old, thus opening the doors to fame for him.
Thus, very quickly, he became a protégé of the Duke of Orleans, future king. Having the opportunity to exhibit regularly in London with his friend ISABEY until the 1820s, the artist had the opportunity to discover the art of TURNER and CONSTABLE. Obviously this had a decisive impact on his work by tinging it with a new romanticism.
Proof of the place he was beginning to occupy on the artistic scene, Charles X already commissioned a painting from him in 1828. The artist was then only 26 years old.
Just before embarking on the Algiers expedition of 1830, Louis-Philippe named GUDIN painter of the Navy, an honour that was renewed under Napoleon III. Between 1831 and 1834, Louis-Philippe acquired a total of four paintings exhibited at the Salon for his personal collection.
On his return from Algeria in 1832, GUDIN set off on a tour of Italy, passing through Switzerland and ending in Russia. There again, he made several travel notebooks which would later serve him for his compositions.
Louis-Philippe elevated GUDIN to the title of baron and commissioned ninety-seven paintings from him for the Versailles Museum to commemorate the great episodes in the history of the French Navy. This was a consecration for him. Unfortunately, although his success was resounding, it was also short-lived and posterity will only remember this marine painting in his work, which is more complex than it seems.
GUDIN was decorated with the Legion of Honour (officer) in 1841 and the Prussian Order of the Cross for Merit in 1845 following an exhibition in Berlin. Napoleon III elevated him to the rank of commander in 1857.
Haunted by the memory of his brother's drowning, GUDIN participated in 1864 in the creation of the Central Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People, of which he would become vice-president.
GUDIN left France for an English exile following the fall of the Second Empire and only returned to France a few years later to settle in Boulogne-Billancourt where he died on April 12, 1880 at the age of 77.
During his long career, the artist had the opportunity to train a good number of students, following the example of his daughter Henriette GUDIN and Léon MOREL-FATIO.
These few words from Edmond BERAUD – publisher, journalist and critic of the time, taken from the preface to the autograph work Souvenirs du baron GUDIN, simply and concisely define the artist's personality:
"No artist excelled as much as he in representing the wave and the turbulence of the sea. He understood the great dramas of the ocean with a kind of wild poetry; his verve and his inspiration, his temperament as a colorist, his prestigious manner charmed the whole of Europe for thirty years."
Museums : Versailles, Paris (Marine Museum), Berlin (Alte Nationalgalerie), Bordeaux, Cahors, Quimper, Dijon…