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Gustave Moreau

Born: Paris, 6 April 1826
Died: Paris, 18 April 1898
Nationality: French
Background: 

bourgeois; never married, lived with mother until her death

Studies: 

with François-Edouard Picot at Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Paris)

Career: 

1851 – first exhibits at Paris Salon

1864 – Oedipus and the Sphinx (a critical and popular success) wins medal at the Salon

1876 – exhibits Hercules and the Hydra of Lerna and Salome at the Salon

1880 – last Salon exhibition

1883 -  made Officer of the Légion d’honneur

1888 – elected member of Académie des Beaux-Arts (Paris)

1892 – appointed professor at Ecole des Beaux-Arts (Paris)

1895 – begins remodeling his home into a museum 

1902 -  Musée Gustave Moreau becomes public museum

 Students

Albert Marquet, Henri Matisse, Georges Rouault

Travels

Italy (1857-59)

Important Artworks: 

Self-Portrait, 1850 (Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris)

Oedipus and the Sphinx, 1864 (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York)

Jacob Wrestling with the Angel, 1870s (watercolor, Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris) 

Hercules and the Hydra of Lerna, 1876 (Art Institute of Chicago)

Salome, 1876 (Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris)