Jean-Marie Toulgouat, restorer of Giverny, 78
Charlene
Jean-Marie Toulgouat September 15, 1927 - December 10, 2005
Painter who inherited the mantle of Monet and devoted himself to
restoring the famous house and gardens at Giverny
THE DEATH of the French painter Jean-Marie Toulgouat severs one of the
last vital links with Claude Monet. In his later years at Giverny,
Monet was surrounded by artist friends, disciples and step-children,
the latter including at least one daughter of his second wife, Blanche
Hoschedé. Blanche was Monet's only official pupil, and she in turn
taught her great-nephew Jean-Marie Toulgouat, in a sort of apostolic
succession.
This was not the only link between Toulgouat and the Monet circle. His
mother was the daughter of another Hoschedé daughter, Suzanne, and one
of Monet's most prominent disciples, the American Impressionist
Theodore Earl Butler. Butler was always personally close to Monet, and
after Suzanne's early death married another of Monet's
stepdaughters, Marie, and so remained with his children right at the
centre of Monet's Giverny household.
His and Suzanne's daughter, Lily, a fashion artist, married the
children's furniture designer Roger Toulgouat, and their son,
Jean-Marie, was born in 1927, some nine months after Monet's death.
Though he thus missed being kissed in his cradle by Monet, which seems
to have been the traditional way of passing on talent among such
creative spirits, the great Impressionist was in every way the
presiding genius of Jean-Marie's youth.
He was born and brought up in Giverny, where after Monet's death
Blanche took charge of the house, the gardens and the legacy. Blanche
encouraged the boy's budding artistic talents, and there is a famous
tale of his childhood which involves his setting out to build a canoe
to paddle on the Seine, but being scuppered by the problems of
constructing a viable bow and stern. Blanche provided the answer by
assigning him some of Monet's rejected canvases, which she had hidden
in a garden shed, so that he ended up boating in cut-up Monets.
(Unhappily, or perhaps not, the canoe was subsequently destroyed.)
After school (locally, in Vernon) Toulgouat left Giverny and the
artistic tutelage of his great-aunt to study architecture in Nice.
Once qualified, he practised for some years in Paris, latterly
specialising in landscape architecture. But painting had been his first
love, and when he was 39 he decided to give up architecture and
concentrate entirely on painting. In 1964 he had married the art
historian Claire Joyes, who was to become a leading authority on Monet,
and returned permanently to his family home in Giverny, where he
continued to paint prolifically, almost always flowers and gardens,
until his death.
By this time Monet's house and gardens at Giverny were in a very
dilapidated state, partly because of problems during the Occupation,
when the house, though declared out of bounds to the Germans, was
largely abandoned. There were also complications arising from the will
of Monet's surviving son, Michel, who had inherited the property and
survived his step-sister, Blanche, who was in effect his housekeeper,
by nearly 20 years. It emerged that he had left the house and its
contents to the Paris Académie des Beaux-Arts, and while the paintings
were removed to the Musée Marmottan, the Académie could not afford to
do much about keeping it up.
Here Toulgouat came back upon the scene. A passionate appeal for funds
was launched, with Toulgouat in charge of its French activities, and of
course he was to act as unofficial consultant on the restoration of the
gardens and the house, importantly based on his own childhood memories.
A modest man, he often said that he considered this the most important
part of his life's work.
Nevertheless, he was much more than just the keeper of the flame. He
and his wife lectured and taught extensively on Monet and his part in
the Impressionist revolution, as well as on the work of his US
grandfather Theodore Earl Butler. But, above all, he painted.
While a certain relationship can be seen between his art and that of
his illustrious step-great-grandfather, he was far from being an
imitator or a pale reflection. True, he painted scenes such as Monet
would have rejoiced in, but in a fashion entirely his own, tending
happily much further towards abstraction than even Monet in his last
paintings.
He was a brilliant colourist, whose evident joie de vivre did not
totally conceal his firm technical control. It might fairly be said of
him, as Cézanne once said of Monet, "Only an eye - but what an
eye!" Jean-Marie Toulgouat is survived by his wife.
Jean-Marie Toulgouat, painter, was born on September 15, 1927. He died
on December 10, 2005, aged 78.
--
wd41
Hyfler/Rosner
"Charlene" <charlene...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1139052650....@g47g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2023649,00.html
Jean-Marie Toulgouat September 15, 1927 - December 10, 2005
Painter who inherited the mantle of Monet and devoted
himself to
restoring the famous house and gardens at Giverny
His paintings: (feh)
http://www.art-connection.com/new/Francis_Kyle_Gallery/paintings/012304/picture.jpg
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/s/lot-837593.html
http://www.franciskylegallery.com/sites/Toul.htm
Brigid Nelson
wrote:
Is it a familial palette?
brigid
k_toulgouat
Charlene
k_toulgouat wrote:
> some information in this article is not correct
The article is from The Times (UK). Please feel free to write them -
they will make changes if you can provide evidence that the information
in their obituary is incorrect. You can e-mail them at
obitu...@thetimes.co.uk .
I for one would be interested to know what is incorrect in the
obituary, so feel free to post the corrections here as well.
wd41
k_toulgouat
he was married with my mother from 1954 till 1966...
Charlene schreef: