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Guignard, Alexandre Gaston (1848-1922)
Gaston Guignard was a Paris barrister who went to war in 1870 with a dragoon regiment and never returned to the law. He came back to enter a painter's studio, and spent the next fifty years painting flocks, orchards and the open country of his native Gironde.
| 1848 | 1870 | 1874 | 1889 | 1922 |
| Born at Bordeauxread law, called to the Paris bar | Dragoon regimentthen the painter's studio | Salon debuthe would show until 1889 | Silver medalExposition Universelle | Dies in Parisaged seventy-four |
Founder of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in 1890 · exhibited in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro
Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur / Silver medal, Exposition Universelle 1889
A listed artist
He entered the studio of the painter Jules-Jean Ferry and completed his training under Henri Gervex and Ferdinand Humbert. His Salon debut came in 1874, and he exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français until 1889.
Recognition came steadily. A medal at the International Exhibition of 1883, a silver medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1889 for Au verger, and in 1891 the state named him chevalier of the Légion d'honneur. In 1890 he was among the founders and elected delegates of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, the breakaway salon led by Meissonier and Puvis de Chavannes.
The Barrister Who Did Not Go Back
He was born in Bordeaux on 8 March 1848 and did what a young man of his background was expected to do. He read law and was admitted to the Paris bar. In 1870 he served in a dragoon regiment through the Franco-Prussian War. When it ended he did not return to the courts.
Like Peraire the stockbroker and Cals the engraver's apprentice, Guignard belongs to that appealing category of nineteenth-century French painters who chose art against the grain of their upbringing, then worked at it with the discipline of a professional.
Flocks, and a Fencing Master
He painted portraits and military subjects, but his ground was the countryside. Flocks of sheep, cattle in pasture, shepherds, hunts, and the landscapes of the Gironde, handled in the warm, atmospheric manner of the Barbizon-descended Realists. Animals hold the centre even in his military scenes, a cavalryman's eye kept for peacetime.
He also exhibited with the Société des Pastellistes, and was one of the first French painters to court the South American market, with exhibitions in Buenos Aires in 1906 and Rio de Janeiro in 1908. A noted swordsman, he presided over the fencing salle of the Cercle Volney, the artists' club in Paris. He died in Paris, at his home, 15 rue Verniquet, in October 1922, aged seventy-four.
The haystacks in his landscapes belong to a tradition we trace elsewhere. See our guide to Haystacks in French Painting.
Recognising a Gaston Guignard
The subjects to look for are sheep and cattle, shepherds, orchards, hunting scenes and the landscape of the Gironde, in a warm and atmospheric palette. Animals are the centre of gravity, drawn with the attention of a man who had spent a war on horseback. Paintings are signed "Gaston Guignard", most often in a lower corner.
Guignard belongs to the generation of French painters who kept the pastoral subject alive after Barbizon. Two of them are in our directory, James Desvarreux-Larpenteur and Paul Emmanuel Peraire.
Where to See His Work
Gaston Guignard is documented in Bénézit, in the authority files of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and in the artist repertory of the Musée d'Orsay, which records his Salon career. The Musée Carnavalet in Paris holds a drawn portrait of him by José Engel. His paintings come to the market regularly in France and abroad, including in South America, a long echo of those pioneering exhibitions of 1906 and 1908.
Biographical information compiled from the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the artist repertory of the Musée d'Orsay, the collections of Paris Musées, and published reference sources including Bénézit. Photographs of the painting by GalerieClub Fine Art.
