MONTREAL, CANADA.- Anne-Louis Girodet (1767-1824), an important painter of the French School, is considered one of the pillars of Romanticism’s early period. And yet there has never been an exhibition of his work in North America. A major retrospective of his work, Girodet, Romantic Rebel, is presented at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts through January 21, 2007, after appearing in Chicago and New York. Among the 130 works in the show are monumental paintings – some of the most famous works in the Louvre – which will be moved for the first time, as well as historical scenes and a selection of works on paper. A first-hand witness of the disruptions caused by the French Revolution and Napoleon’s rise to power, Girodet used historical painting to reflect emotions. He painted many portraits, and in them he made clear his stance on the issues of the day: he spoke out against slavery by painting the portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley, the black deputy from Santo Domingo; he committed himself politically to Napoleon as Emperor; and argued for the Romantic aesthetic in support of his contemporary, the writer Chateaubriand. This exhibition will consider the most significant, intriguing and contentious aspects of the artist, including the literary sources of his work, his development of new subject matter, his interest in political issues and in the diversity of mankind. It will also deal with Girodet’s remarkable powers of imagination and his particular attraction to the bizarre.

Born into a bourgeois family in Montargis in 1767, Anne-Louis Girodet became a painter despite his parents’ objections. After the death of his father in 1784, he became a student of the painter Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825), who – before the Revolution – reinvigorated French painting and established the rules of Neoclassicism. Along with Antoine-Jean Gros (1771-1835) and François Gérard (1770-1837), Girodet was among David’s most celebrated students. He demonstrated an extraordinary talent and was an exceptional draftsman. He quickly grasped the aesthetic and intellectual rules of Neoclassicism, rules he would set out to contravene in his artistic endeavours after the Revolution. In 1789, at the age of twenty-two, he won the Prix de Rome with his painting Joseph Recognized by His Brothers, and thereafter continued to paint in his own way. He set off for Italy to study the great masters of the Renaissance. In 1793, his Sleep of Endymion, which he sent to the Paris Salon, attracted attention, but his more fluid style and his incorporation of mystery, sensuality and the irrational marked a divergence from David’s Neoclassicism and created a volatile relationship between teacher and pupil.

Girodet was also known for his explosive personality. His portrait of Mademoiselle Lange as Danaë (1799), a revenge on a courtesan-actress, scandalized the Salon with its satirical sexual references. His lively personality and painterly skill attracted the attention of Napoleon, who appointed him royal portraitist in 1800. His emotional instability drew Girodet to dramatic or violent subjects like The Apotheosis of French Heroes Who Died for Their Country during the War for Liberty (1801), A Scene from a Deluge (1802-1806) and The Burial of Atala (1808), for which he was awarded the Legion of Honour that same year. When in 1810 he won a major competition, beating David’s famous canvas The Rape of the Sabine Women, the relationship between the artists deteriorated. After inheriting a fortune in 1812, Girodet produced fewer paintings, shutting himself up in his house to write poems on aesthetics, illustrate books by Virgil and Racine and translate Greek and Roman authors. He died in 1824 at the age of fifty-seven.

The exhibition, which is arranged in chronological order but also explores specific themes, demonstrates the development of an artist whose life was profoundly affected by his ambition to build himself a glorious career and by the socio-political context of his times, one of the most turbulent periods in European history.

The curator of the exhibition Girodet, Romantic Rebel is Sylvain Bellenger, former curator of European paintings and sculpture at the Cleveland Museum of Art, now chief curator for heritage, on secondment from the Institut national d’histoire de l’art, Paris. Guy Cogeval, Director of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, is curator-in-charge of the Montreal presentation.

The exhibition is the subject of an impressive, richly illustrated 495-page catalogue, Girodet, 1767-1824, edited by Sylvain Bellenger and co-published in English and French by the Louvre and Éditions Gallimard.

In Montreal, the exhibition is presented by Sun Life Financial.

This exhibition, initiated by the Cleveland Museum of Art, was co-organized by the Louvre Museum and the Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, in collaboration with the Art Institute of Chicago, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, and the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, with the invaluable co-operation of the Musée Girodet.

It has received funding from the Department of Canadian Heritage through the Canada Travelling Exhibitions Indemnification Program. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts thanks its media partners La Presse, The Gazette and Société Radio-Canada, and expresses its gratitude to the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec and the Montreal Arts Council for their ongoing support.

The Museum’s international exhibitions programme receives financial support from the Exhibition Fund of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts Foundation and the Paul G. Desmarais Fund.