Walter Gay

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Walter Gay
Walter Gay: La Cheminée

Walter Gay (born January 22, 1856 in Hingham , Massachusetts , † July 14, 1937 at Château de Bréau near Dammarie-les-Lys ) was an American painter. After still lifes with flowers, which were created during his early phase in the USA, the artist first worked on depictions of the simple rural population in the style of academic realism after moving to Paris and achieved great success in the Salon de Paris and other exhibitions. From the 1890s Gay specialized in interior views of museums and apartments of the upper class, taking over the painting style of Impressionism .

life and work

Youth and education

Walter Gay was born in Hingham, Massachusetts in 1856 and grew up in Dorchester , a suburb of Boston . His uncle, the painter Wincksorth Alan Gay , aroused his interest in painting at an early age and gave him his first lessons. This was followed by art classes in evening classes at the Lowell Institute in Boston. His uncle also made contact with the painter William Morris Hunt , with whom he studied from 1873. During this time he shared a studio with John Bernard Johnston . Gay initially specialized in flower still lifes. This resulted in mostly colorful compositions of field flowers in front of a black painted background.

First years in Paris

Walter Gay: The Weaver

In 1876 he finished his training with Hunt and went to Paris, where he joined Léon Bonnat's studio as a student . He stayed with his teacher until 1879, who had just as much influence on him as the Catalan painter Marià Fortuny , who introduced him to Spanish painting. In addition, Gay frequented the artist pubs of Montmartre , where he made friends with the painters Pierre Puvis de Chavannes , Édouard Manet , Giovanni Boldini and Edgar Degas .

In 1878 Gay traveled to Madrid and studied and copied works by Velázquez and other Spanish baroque painters in the Prado . Since 1879 he exhibited regularly at the Salon de Paris . In the period that followed, Gay mostly worked on small-format genre pictures in the style of the 18th century, which Fortuny and Ernest Meissonier also preferred. This included representations such as the paintings The Philosopher and Monk Reading from 1882 .

Together with his uncle, Gay traveled to Barbizon in the forest of Fontainebleau for the first time in 1882 and visited Concarneau in Brittany . Gay was enthusiastic about the original way of life of the rural population and returned to these places repeatedly in the 1880s. Under the influence of the painters Jules Breton and Léon Augustin Lhermitte , large-format paintings in dark colors in the style of academic realism were created during this period . Examples of this are works like The weaver , La Bénédicté , The Spinners or Charity , which Gay showed at the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 , where they were successfully received by critics and the public and he received a silver medal for his work. The French state had also acquired La Bénédicté for the Musée du Luxembourg last year after it had been awarded a gold medal in the Salon. Gay also sent the Charity painting to the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Further successful exhibitions with works by Gay followed in the 1890s in Vienna, Antwerp, Berlin and Munich.

Marriage and building an art collection

In 1889 Walter Gay married Matilda Travers, the daughter of wealthy New York lawyer and entrepreneur William R. Travers . The wife's legacy enabled the gays to have a lavish lifestyle throughout their lives. This included an apartment in an 18th century house in Paris as well as various country houses in the vicinity of the French capital. In 1896 he received a small gold medal at the International Art Exhibition in Berlin . In 1905 the couple acquired the Château du Bréau near Dammarie-les-Lys , which they used as a country residence until their deaths. The couple also built up their own art collection. First - during their honeymoon in England in 1889 - they began to buy English silverware from the 18th century and old porcelain, before turning to paintings and especially drawings. In addition to French works from the 18th century, the gay collection also contained Dutch drawings from the 17th century. These drawings - including over 20 works by Rembrandt - were donated to the Louvre by Matilda Gay in 1938 .

Painter of interiors

Walter Gay: Galerie des Bustes, Château du Reveillon

From 1895 Walter Gay changed both his painting style and the choice of motifs. In the years up to his death in 1937, interiors in the style of the 18th century were created almost without exception. He began with views of the rooms of his Château du Bréau and the neighboring Château de Fortoiseau , which quickly aroused interest among wealthy buyers in depictions of their own residences. His clients included, for example, gay friends Edith Wharton , Henry James , Alva Vanderbilt Belmont , the Duke of Sutherland and Berthe de Béhague , who had all the interiors of their homes made. In addition, he created interior views of various museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Musée Carnavalet and the Musée Jacquemart-André in Paris. He also made the interiors of Henry Clay Frick's New York house (today the Frick Collection ) and the Venetian Palazzo Barbaro for the American owner Daniel Sargent Curtis .

For these interiors, Gay chose a fleeting brushstroke that he adopted from the Impressionists and, like them, worked with different lighting conditions. Gay did not always depict the occurrences he found, but mostly rearranged furniture and other inventory into a painterly composition. In his small-format interiors, he often chose only one section of the room and did not depict people. Similar images can be found in the works of Edgar Degas , Adolph Menzel and John Singer Sargent , who were among gay friends as well as the painter Ralph Wormeley Curtis and the interior designer Elsie de Wolfe .

Gay was a member of numerous artists' associations. These included the American Federation of Arts , the National Institute of Arts and Letters , the Society of American Artists , the English Royal Watercolor Society , the French Société nationale des beaux-arts and the Munich Secession . In 1894 he was awarded the title of Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor . In 1906 he was appointed officer and in 1927 as commandeur. Gay died in 1937 on his country estate near Dammarie-lès-Lys.

Works in public collections (selection)

literature

  • Walter Gay: Memoirs of Walter Gay . New York 1930.
  • Lois Marie Fink: American art at the nineteenth century Paris salons . National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC 1990, ISBN 0-521-38499-0 .
  • William Rieder: A charmed couple: The Art and Life of Walter & Matilda Gay. Harry N. Abrams, New York 2002, ISBN 0-8109-4561-4 .
  • Kathleen Adler, David Park Curry: Americans in Paris, 1860–1900 . Exhibition catalog London, Boston, New York, National Gallery, London 2006, ISBN 1-85709-301-1 .
  • Isabel L. Taube, Priscilla Vail, Caldwell, Sarah J. Hall: Impressions of interiors, gilded age paintings by Walter Gay . Giles, London 2012, ISBN 1-907804-08-0 .

Web links

Commons : Walter Gay  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Gay, Walter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American painter
DATE OF BIRTH January 22, 1856
PLACE OF BIRTH Hingham , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH July 14, 1937
Place of death Château de Bréau near Dammarie-les-Lys