Pierre Auguste Cot was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 painter of the Academic Classicism school.

Biography

He was born in Bédarieux

Bédarieux

Bédarieux, is a commune in the Hérault department in the region of Languedoc-Roussillon in southern France.The inhabitants are called Bédariciens.-Geography:Bédarieux is west of Montpellier and north of Béziers...

, Hérault

Hérault

Hérault is a department in the south of France named after the Hérault river.-History:Hérault is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790...

 and initially studied at l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Toulouse

Toulouse

Toulouse is a city in the Haute-Garonne department in southwestern FranceIt lies on the banks of the River Garonne, 590 km away from Paris and half-way between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea...

 before going to Paris. He studied under Leon Cogniet

Léon Cogniet

Léon Cogniet was a French historical and portrait painter.- Biography :Cogniet was born in Paris. In 1812, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, where he studied under Pierre-Narcisse Guérin at the same time as Delacroix and Géricault. In 1817 he won the Prix de Rome and was a resident at...

, Alexandre Cabanel

Alexandre Cabanel

Alexandre Cabanel was a French painter.- Biography :Cabanel was born in Montpellier, Hérault. He painted historical, classical and religious subjects in the academic style. He was also well known as a portrait painter...

 and William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was a French academic painter. William Bouguereau was a traditionalist; in his realistic genre paintings he used mythological themes, making modern interpretations of Classical subjects, with an emphasis on the female human body.-Life and career :William-Adolphe...

. In 1863 he made a successful debut at the Salon, and from the 1870s, his popularity grew quickly. He enjoyed the protection of the academic sculptor Francisque Duret, whose daughter he married, and of Bouguereau, with whom he had also worked. He won various prizes and medals and in 1874 he was made Chevalier of the Legion of Honour

Légion d'honneur

The Legion of Honour, or in full the National Order of the Legion of Honour is a French order established by Napoleon Bonaparte, First Consul of the Consulat which succeeded to the First Republic, on 19 May 1802...

.
He created several works of lasting popularity, including Le Printemps, featuring two young lovers sitting upon a swing, and The Storm

The Storm (painting)

The Storm is a painting by French artist Pierre Auguste Cot, completed in 1880. Currently on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the painting was commissioned from the artist in 1880 by Catharine Lorillard Wolfe under the guidance of her cousin John Wolfe, one of Cot's principal...

. Both these paintings are on display at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...

 in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

; The Storm belongs to the museum while Le Printemps is owned privately.

Cot also was renowned for his portrait

Portrait

thumb|250px|right|Portrait of [[Thomas Jefferson]] by [[Rembrandt Peale]], 1805. [[New-York Historical Society]].A portrait is a painting, photograph, sculpture, or other artistic representation of a person, in which the face and its expression is predominant. The intent is to display the likeness,...

s, which made up the majority of his work. The more enduring figurative work, such as The Storm

The Storm (painting)

The Storm is a painting by French artist Pierre Auguste Cot, completed in 1880. Currently on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the painting was commissioned from the artist in 1880 by Catharine Lorillard Wolfe under the guidance of her cousin John Wolfe, one of Cot's principal...

, is comparatively rare. Shortly after his death at the age of forty-six (2 August 1883), a subscription was undertaken for a commemorative monument to the artist, which was erected at Bédarieux in 1892.

Selected works

• Dionysia, (1870) - Chi-Mei Museum
  Chi-mei Museum
  The Chi Mei Museum in Tainan, Taiwan, is the private museum of the Chi Mei Corporation. The collection is divided into five categories: Western Art ; Musical instruments; Natural history; Arms and armor; Antiquities and artifacts...
  
  , Taiwan
  Taiwan
  Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
  
  
• Ophelia, (1870)
• The Gypsy (La Bohémienne), (1871)
• Spring (Le Printemps) (1873) - Metropolitan Museum of Art
  Metropolitan Museum of Art
  The Metropolitan Museum of Art is a renowned art museum in New York City. Its permanent collection contains more than two million works, divided into nineteen curatorial departments. The main building, located on the eastern edge of Central Park along Manhattan's Museum Mile, is one of the...
  
  , New York City
  New York City
  New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
  
  
• The Storm
  The Storm (painting)
  The Storm is a painting by French artist Pierre Auguste Cot, completed in 1880. Currently on display at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, the painting was commissioned from the artist in 1880 by Catharine Lorillard Wolfe under the guidance of her cousin John Wolfe, one of Cot's principal...
  
   (La Tempête), (1880) - Metropolitan Museum of Art
• The Reading light (La Liseuse), (about 1880)
• Portrait of Madame Mas (Portrait de Madame Mas), (1882)
• Mireille (1882) - Musée Fabre
  Musée Fabre
  The Musée Fabre is a museum in the southern French city of Montpellier, capital of the Hérault département.The museum was founded by François-Xavier Fabre, a Montpellier painter, in 1825. Beginning in 2003, the museum underwent a 61.2 million euro renovation, which was completed in January 2007...
  
  , Montpellier
  Montpellier
  -Neighbourhoods:Since 2001, Montpellier has been divided into seven official neighbourhoods, themselves divided into sub-neighbourhoods. Each of them possesses a neighbourhood council....
  
  
• Charity for My Sister - Wolverhampton Art Gallery
  Wolverhampton Art Gallery
  Wolverhampton Art Gallery is located in the City of Wolverhampton, in the West Midlands, United Kingdom. The building was funded and constructed by local contractor Philip Horsman , and built on land provided by the Council...
  
  

External links