JEAN-LEON GEROME – French Academic Painter, Teacher of Many Famous Artists (H)

This artist’s paintings were so widely reproduced that he was “arguably the world’s most famous living artist by 1880.“ The range of his oeuvre included historical painting, Greek mythology, Orientalism, portraits, and other subjects, bringing the academic painting tradition to an artistic climax. He is considered one of the most important painters of this academic period. He was also a teacher with a long list of students who later became famous. Jean-Léon Gérôme lived from May 11th, 1824 to January 10th, 1904. He was a French painter and sculptor in the style now known as academicism. Jean-Léon Gérôme was born at Vesoul, Haute-Saône, a region in Eastern France. In 1840, when he was 16 years old, he went to Paris. There he studied under Paul Delaroche, whom he accompanied to Italy in 1843. He visited Florence, Rome, the Vatican, and Pompeii. On his return to Paris in 1844, like many students of Delaroche, he joined the atelier of Ch