gustave moreau // biography (1826-1898) / gallery / prints

//Gustave Moreau//

Known as: French Symbolist painter

Born: April 6, 1826, Paris, France

Date of death: April 18, 1898, Paris

Buried: Cimetière de Montmartre

There can be little doubt that Gustave Moreau was the forebearer of the Symbolist movement. His work was mostly preoccupied with Christian and mythological figures; the literary ideas he put to paint appealed to many Symbolist artists and writers who came in his wake.

His father was an architect, who recognized his talent. Moreau studied under François-Edouard Picot and Théodore Chassériau, who he became lovers with. His first painting was a Pieta which is now located in the cathedral at Angouleme. He showed a Scene from the Song of Songs and the Death of Darius in the Salon of 1853. In 1853 he contributed Athenians with the Minotaur and Moses putting off his Sandals within Sight of the Promised Land to the Great Exhibition.

Oedipus and the Sphinx, one of his first symbolist paintings was exhibited at the Salon of 1864. Over his lifetime he painted over 8000 paintings, watercolors and drawings, many of which are on display in Paris at the Musée Gustave Moreau at 14, rue de la Rochefoucauld (IXe arrondissement) in Paris. The museum is in his former workshop, and opened to the public in 1903.

He became professor at École des Beaux-Arts of Paris in 1891 and counted among his many students the fauvist painters Henri Matisse and Georges Rouault.

//Gallery//