Hector Guimard

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(Guimard lived and worked in this house)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(entrance detail with limestone surround)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(window details in limestone and bronze)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(window details in limestone and bronze)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(ground-floor window details in limestone and bronze)
ca. 1910
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(bedroom with furniture and fittings designed by Guimard)
ca. 1909
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(curtain panel designed by Guimard)
ca. 1909
embroidered silk
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
House at 22 rue Mozart, Paris
(dining room with furniture and fittings designed by Guimard)
ca. 1910
platinum print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Apartment House designed by Guimard
1911
gelatin silver print
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Balustrade designed by Guimard
1905
cast iron
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Design for Architectural Panel
ca. 1925
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Design for Tombstone
ca. 1900
drawing
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Printmaker
Guimard Exhibition at Musée d'Orsay, Paris
1992
offset-lithograph (poster)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Hat Pin designed by Guimard for his Wife
1910
gilt bronze
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Anonymous Printmaker
Le Style Guimard
(the designer working in his studio)
1903
hand-colored gelatin silver print (postcard)
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Hector Guimard
Picture Frame designed by Guimard
1907
gilt bronze
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

Sèvres Manufactory
Vase designed by Guimard
1903
stoneware
Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum

from The Consolation of Philosophy

    The Music, flowing through the shade

And darkness, did with ease invade

The silent and attentive Ghosts;

And Cerberus, which guards those coasts

With his lowd barkings, overcome

By the sweet Notes, was now struck dumb.

The Furies, us'd to rave and howl

And prosecute each guilty soul,

Had lost their rage, and in a deep

Transport did most profusely weep.

Ixion's wheel stopt, and the curst

Tantalus almost kill'd with thirst,

Though the Streams now did make no haste,

But waited for him, none would taste.

That Vultur, which fed still upon

Tityus his liver, now was gone

To feed on Air, and would not stay

Though almost famish'd, with her prey.

    Won with these wonders, their fierce Prince

At last cried out, We yield! and since

Thy merits claim no less, take hence

Thy Consort for thy Recompence.

But, Orpheus, to this law we bind

Our grant, you must not look behind,

Nor of your fair Love have one Sight,

Till out of our Dominions quite. 

– Boethius (AD 476-524), translated by Henry Vaughan (1678)

Giovanni Boldini (1842-1931) - Evolving Style

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of Lilia Monti née Contessa Magnoni
1864-65
oil on canvas
Museo Boldini nel Castello Estense di Ferrara

Giovanni Boldini
Ladies of the First Empire
1875
oil on panel
private collection

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of a Dandy
(formerly identified as Toulouse-Lautrec)
ca. 1880-90
pastel on paper
Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of John Singer Sargent
ca. 1890
oil on panel
private collection

Giovanni Boldini
At the Piano
ca. 1890
oil on canvas
Pinacoteca della Città Metropolitana di Bari

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of Robert de Montesquiou
1897
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of a Gardener
1897
oil on panel
(painted on the inside of the lid of a wooden paint box)
Museo Boldini nel Castello Estense di Ferrara

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of Contessa Beatrice di Byland
1901
oil on canvas
Museo Frugone, Genoa

Giovanni Boldini
The Page
1901
oil on canvas
Museo Frugone, Genoa

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of Ava Lister née Astor,
Baroness Ribblesdale
1905
oil on canvas
private collection

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of Rita Hernandez de Alba de Acosta Stokes Lydig
1911
oil on canvas
private collection

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of Madame Juillard in Red
1912
oil on canvas
private collection

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of Madame Michelham
1913
oil on canvas
private collection

Giovanni Boldini
Élégante à la robe bleu
before 1914
oil on canvas
Fondation Bemberg, Toulouse

Giovanni Boldini
Portrait of Olivia Concha de Fontecilla
1916
oil on canvas
Palazzo dei Diamanti, Ferrara

Boldini's style as a portraitist as sampled here spans fifty years.  Though he lived on into the Great Depression, nearly reaching the age of ninety, Boldini's career became a minor casualty of World War I.  From sober, academically correct beginnings, he had gradually evolved a dashing and advanced portrait style that attracted all fashionable Europe (including many rich American visitors and transplants).  Yet the competition for dashing and advanced taste in the unfettered post-war world of the 1920s rather inundated the elderly painter, and he quietly accepted retirement.