Aziz Art October 2016

The exhibition opened at the
Musée du Petit-Palais, in Paris,
traveled to The Wadsworth
Atheneum in Hartford, and
concluded in Montréal. More
recently, resurgence in the artist's
popularity has been promoted by
American collector Fred Ross, who
owns a number of paintings by
Bouguereau and features him on
his website at Art Renewal Center
Since 1975 prices for
Bouguereau's works have
climbed steadily, with major
paintings selling at high prices:
$1,500,000 in 1998 for
The Heart's Awakening,
$2,600,000 in 1999 for
Alma Parens and Charity at
auction in May 2000 for
$3,500,000. Bouguereau's works
are in many public collections.
“Notre Dame des Anges” (“Our
Lady of the Angels")
was last shown publicly in the
United States at the World’s
Columbian Exhibition in
Chicago in 1893. In 2002 it was
donated to the Daughters
of Mary Mother of Our Savior,
an order of nuns is affiliated with
Clarence Kelly's Traditionalist
Catholic Society of St. Pius V. In
2009 the nuns sold it to an art
dealer for $450,000, who was able
to sell it for more than $2 million
dollars. Kelly was subsequently
found guilty by an Albany, New York
jury of defaming the dealer in
remarks made in a television
interview.."
As a teacher
From the 1860s, Bouguereau was
closely associated with the
Académie Julian where he gave
lessons and advice to art students,
male and female, from around the
world. During several decades he
taught drawing and painting to
hundreds, if not thousands, of
students. Many of them managed
to establish artistic careers in their
own countries, sometimes
following his academic style, and in
other cases, rebelling against it, like
Henri Matisse. He married his most
famous pupil, Elizabeth Jane
Gardner, after the death of his first
wife.