Exhibition catalogue Guillon Lethière, Né à la Guadeloupe

Exhibition 'Guillon Lethière, born in Guadeloupe' at the Musée du Louvre from 13 November 2024 to 17 February 2025.

Guillaume Guillon-Lethière (1760-1832) was one of the major figures on the French artistic scene in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His career was brilliant, but he is largely...

Exhibition 'Guillon Lethière, born in Guadeloupe' at the Musée du Louvre from 13 November 2024 to 17 February 2025.

Guillaume Guillon-Lethière (1760-1832) was one of the major figures on the French artistic scene in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. His career was brilliant, but he is largely forgotten today. Director of the Académie de France in Rome from 1807 to 1816, member of the Institut in 1818, professor at the École des Beaux-Arts in 1819, he was a history painter and artist admired in his time - but also a sensitive portraitist.
A passionate collector, he advised great art lovers such as Lucien Bonaparte and the Duc d'Albe.

This exhibition, co-organised by the Clark Art Institute (Williamston, Mass.) and the Musée du Louvre, will provide an opportunity to reconsider his work as a whole.
The research carried out for the catalogue will shed new light on his Guadeloupean identity and certain hitherto little-known aspects of his biography, in particular his links with the West Indian diaspora.