William-Adolphe Bouguereau

(French, 1825–1905)

William Adolphe Bouguereau was a French painter, best known for his realist depictions of the human figure set within Neoclassical and rustic settings. Born in La Rochelle, France on November 30, 1825, Bouguereau went on to study at the École des Beaux-Arts, striving to make his mark in the tradition of Renaissance painters like Titian, he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1850. Bouguereau’s life-sized oil paintings of mythological narratives were highly detailed. With polished brushstrokes and nuanced tonal shifts, both his technique and subject matter were antithetical to his contemporaries, the French Impressionists, whom he played an active part in banning from the Salon each year. Relating to his painting practice, Bouguereau said: ”Each day I go to my studio full of joy; in the evening when obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarcely wait for the next morning to come...if I cannot give myself to my dear painting I am miserable.” Bouguereau died on August 19, 1905 in La Rochelle, France. His works are in the collections of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the Louvre Museum in Paris, and the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, among others.