Le Cocktail Français

American Painters in Brittany
                        
Tuesday, April 2
6:30 PM

Illustrated lecture and discussion

In 1866, Paul Gaugin finds Paris suffocating and heads off in search of purity and sincerity. He takes himself in Brittany, which seems to be the perfect place to offer him inspiration.  There he settles in Pont-Aven and encounters a group of American artists who had been drawn to this village 20 years earlier by Robert Wylie, then curator of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. The small town would soon become one of the most important and influential artistic centers in France.
     Would Gaugin have flourished without the Americans leading the way and establishing an enticing artists’ scene in Pont-Aven? Daniel Hubert will answer that and other questions. Having worked on special projects with the Pont-Aven School of Contemporary Arts, Hubert understood the attraction of the American artists to that special place. Pont-Aven has maintained the same landscapes, colors and peaceful surroundings that brought so many artists to Brittany.