Ferdinand du Puigaudeau (1864-1930)
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Ferdinand du Puigaudeau was a French Impressionist artist born in Nantes. At the age of 18, Puigaudeau took up painting, but did not begin to truly form his own style until he traveled to Tunisia and Italy. His first known works are dated in 1886, the same year that he moved to Pont-Aven where he became friends with Paul Gaugin.
While in Pont-Aven, Puigaudeau made plans to visit Martinique and Panama with Gaugin. However, this was never realized as Puigaudeau was called away to war. After his service in the military, he traveled to Belgium in 1889. There he became associated with the “Group of Twenty.” The following year, Puigaudeau presented one of his pieces for the first time to the Salon de la Societe National des Beaux-Arts.
In 1893, Puigaudeau married and had a daughter shortly thereafter named Odette. During the subsequent years, he continued to live in Pont-Aven and became friends with Paul Durand-Ruel and Edgar Degas. During this time, Puigaudeau painted compositions of lively merry-go-round scenes and fun fairs, which some art critics claim to be his most beautiful.
Puigaudeau was generally a landscape artist, who was quite talented in portraying light in his Impressionistic compositions. In 1904, he traveled to Venice where he completed more than 50 beautiful Italian landscapes, cityscapes and nighttime scenes. However, upon his return to Paris, Puigaudeau’s landscapes were generally panned at the Salons. Shamed by this great rejection, he feels forced to leave Paris and settles in the village of Bourg on the Loire River.
In 1907, Puigaudeau bought the Kervaudu estate where he remained for the rest of his life. Though he still participated in exhibitions in Nantes, he essentially became a recluse and was nicknamed “the hermit of Kervaudu” by his friend Degas. Here, he painted tranquil, sweeping landscapes and Impressionist scenes of his gardens and flowerbeds.
The war of 1914, caused Puigaudeau several setbacks and his output generally began to slow down. In 1919, he was invited to work on an exhibition in New York. However, this too fell through and plunged him head first into a deep depression. Though Puigaudeau was also an alcoholic by this time and was terribly depressed, he managed to receive a few commissions toward the end of his life, including creating illustrations for the novel “La Briere” by Alphonse de Chateaubriant.
Though Puigaudeau did not find the same kind of success as his contemporaries during his lifetime, today collectors acknowledge his great talent and his works are in demand. Due to his extensive travels, Puigaudeau’s landscapes, still life and genre scenes could be found virtually anywhere in Europe. Still wondering about a late 19th century or early 20th century Impressionistic piece in your home? Contact us….it could be by Ferdinand du Puigaudeau.