Jean-Baptiste Gustave Le Gray (; August 30, 1820 – July 30, 1884) was a French painter, draughtsman, sculptor, print-maker, and photographer. He has been called "the most important French photographer of the nineteenth century" because of his technical innovations, his instruction of other noted photographers, and "the extraordinary imagination he brought to picture making." He was an important contributor to the development of the wax paper negative.

Biography

Gustave Le Gray was born on August 30, 1820 in Villiers-le-Bel, Val-d'Oise. His parents encouraged him to become a solicitor's clerk, but from a young age, he aspired to be an artist. He was originally trained as a painter, studying under François-Édouard Picot and Paul Delaroche. His parents financed a trip to Switzerland and Italy so that he could study art abroad, and he lived in Italy between 1843 and 1846 and painted portraits and scenes of the countryside. In 1844, he met and married Palmira Maddalena Gertrude Leonardi (born March 23, 1823), a laundress who he had six children with, although only two survived into adulthood.

Le Gray exhibited his paintings at the Salon of 1848 and Salon of 1853. His real contributions – artistically and technically – were in the area of paper photography. His early photographs included portraits, scenes of nature such as Fontainebleau Forest, and buildings such as châteaux of the Loire Valley.

thumb|[[Self-portrait|Self Portrait ()]]

He taught photography to students such as Charles Nègre, Henri Le Secq, Nadar, Olympe Aguado, and Maxime Du Camp. In 1851, he became one of the first five photographers hired for the Missions Héliographiques to document French monuments and buildings. In that same year, he helped found the Société Héliographique, the "first photographic organization in the world." He therefore "closed his studio, abandoned his wife and children, and fled the country to escape his creditors."

On 16 January 1883, he had a son with the nineteen-year-old Anaïs Candounia. Registration of their sons birth was voided due to lack of proof of Leonardi's death. Le Gray died on 30 July 1884, in Cairo.

  • A collodion process published in 1850 but which was "theoretical at best". The invention of the wet collodion method to produce a negative on a glass plate is now credited to Frederick Scott Archer who published his process in 1851. At the same auction, an albumen print of "The Great Wave, Sète" by Le Gray was sold for a new world record price of £507,500 or $840,370 to "the same anonymous buyer" who was later revealed to be Sheik Saud Al-Thani of Qatar. The record stood until May 2003 when Al-Thani purchased a daguerreotype by Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey for £565,250 or $922,488.

Books

  • A practical treatise on photography, upon paper and glass by Gustave Le Gray, (translated by Thomas Cousins) London : T. & R. Willats, 1850.
  • Photographic manipulation: the waxed paper process of Gustave Le Gray by Gustave Le Gray. Translated from the French. London: George Knight and Sons, 1853.

<gallery caption="Architecture and landscapes">

File:GustaveLeGray.jpg|Central portal of the Church of Saint-Jacques, Aubeterre, France (1851)

File:Train station with train and coal depot by Gustave Le Gray1.jpg|Train station with train and coal depot, digitally restored

File:Gustave Le Gray (French - Cloudy Sky - Mediterranean Sea (Ciel Charge - Mer Mediterranee)) - Google Art Project.jpg|Cloudy Sky - Mediterranean Sea

File:Gustave Le Gray (French - Seascape with Sailing Ship and Tugboat - Google Art Project.jpg|Seascape with Sailing Ship and Tugboat

File:Gustave Le Gray - Brig upon the Water - Google Art Project.jpg|Brig upon the Water

Image:Gustave Le Gray-The Great Wave.jpg|The Great Wave, Sète

File:Le Gray Forest of Fontainebleau.jpg|Forest of Fontainebleau (1855)

Bateaux quittant le port du Havre Le Gray.jpg|Bateaux quittant le port du Havre (1855/1856)

File:Gustave Le Gray-Reine Hortense.jpg|Imperial yacht Reine Hortense (1856)

File:Gustave LeGray - Tree, Forest of Fontainebleau - Google Art Project.jpg|Forest of Fontainbleau (c. 1856)

File:1858 Gustave Le Gray la batterie Royale à Brest.jpg|Batterie Royale à Brest (1858)

File:Gustave Le Gray, The Tour St-Jacques, 1859.jpg|Tour Saint-Jacques (1859)

File:LeGray Palerme.jpg|Palermo (1860)

File:Uzerche by Gustave Le Gray (2).jpg|Waterfront village (Uzerche)

</gallery>

<gallery caption="Portraits">

File:Henri Le Secq portrait.jpg|Henri Le Secq (1848)

File:Gustave Le Gray, Louis-Napoléon, Prince-President of the Republic, 1852.jpg|Louis-Napoléon (1852)

File:Empress Eugenie 1856.jpg|Empress Eugenie (1856)

File:Victor Cousin by Gustave Le Gray, late 1850s.jpg|Victor Cousin

File:Le Gray, Gustave (1820-1884) - Portrait du général Istvàn Türr (1825-1908) - Palerme, juillet 1860.jpg|General István Türr (1860)

File:Alexandre Dumas 4.jpg|Alexandre Dumas (1860)

File:Napoléon Louis de Méneval (Legray).jpg|

File:Gustave Le Gray Dromadaire d artillerie Egypt cca 1866.jpg|Camel transporting artillery, Egypt (1866)

File:Napoleon III, 1857.jpg|Napoleon III, (1857)

</gallery>

<gallery caption="Paintings">

File:Portrait de Mme G L (Palmira Leonardi, wife of Gustave Le Gray).jpg|Portrait of Mme G. L. (Palmira Leonardi, wife of the artist), 1853

File:Empress Eugenie by Gustave Le Gray (gift from Isma'il Pasha).jpg|Empress Eugénie, 1869, commissioned by Isma'il Pasha, given to the Empress on the occasion of the inauguration of the Suez Canal

File:Le Retour de la fontaine au Caire - Gustave Le Gray.jpg|Back from the Fountain, Cairo, 1873

</gallery>

Legacy

Caroline Shaw has a piano piece inspired by Le Gray (because of the "blurring of the edges" and "slowly coming into focus", according to Shaw) and Chopin's Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4.

See also

  • Charles Nègre
  • History of photography
  • List of most expensive photographs
  • Société française de photographie

References

Further reading

  • Parry, Eugenia. The photography of Gustave Le Gray. Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago and University of Chicago Press, 1987.
  • Aubenas, Sylvie. Gustave Le Gray, 1820–1884. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2002.
  • Aubenas, Sylvie. Gustave Le Gray. London and New York: Phaidon, 2003.
  • Gustave Le Gray Collection at Victoria and Albert Museum
  • Gustave Le Gray: Master Photographer of the 19th Century, I Photo Central
  • All the Mighty World: The Photographs of Roger Fenton, 1852–1860, exhibition catalog fully online as PDF from The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which contains material on Gustave Le Gray (see index)
  • Krygier, Irit on artnet.com Sublime Le Gray