George Viau. A major collector of impressionism and post-impressionism

By
Lea SAINT-RAYMOND (Researcher/ ENS-PSL)
, updated on
2 June 2022
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Between the beginning of the 20th century and his death, the dental surgeon George Viau (1855-1939) built up an exceptional collection, both in terms of size - approximately 1,200 works of art - and quality, bringing together the greatest impressionist and post-impressionist names such as Monet, Renoir, Sisley, Pissarro, Degas, Morisot, Toulouse-Lautrec, Cézanne, Van Gogh, Denis, Vuillard, and many others.

The Digital Viau project finely reconstructs the trajectory of this exceptional ensemble, from the acquisition of the paintings, sculptures, drawings and engravings, to their successive dispersals at Parisian public auctions in 1907, 1909, 1930 and 1939, and the current location of the works.

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Édouard Vuillard (1868-1940), Le Docteur George Viau dans son cabinet dentaire, 1914, huile sur toile, 107,7x137,5 cm, Paris, musée d’Orsay, RF1977 396

This collaborative research is based on the work and testimonies of George Viau's descendants, Juliette Tacail, Christian Theuveny and Claude Petit-Castelli, who produced a first catalog raisonné of the collection. Thanks to a training course in digital humanities at the ENS-PSL, given by Léa Saint-Raymond, this corpus is completed by archival work and provenance research in museums, and published online.

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Claude Monet (1840-1926), La Seine à Vétheuil, 1881, huile sur toile, 73,7x100,5 cm, coll. part (ancienne collection Viau)

Team 

Publications

  • Christian Theuveny with Claude Petit-Castelli, George Viau, un amateur éclairé. 50 ans de collection d’un ami des impressionnistes, Louviers, Ecila, 2018.
  • Christian Theuveny with Claude Petit-Castelli, George Viau, un amateur éclairé. 50 ans de collection d’un ami des impressionnistes. Supplément, Louviers, Ecila, 2020.
  • Léa Saint-Raymond, « L’impressionnisme dans les annuaires de collectionneurs, en France et à l’étranger (1878-1937 », in Ségolène Le Men et Félicie de Maupeou (dir.), Collectionner l’impressionnisme, Milan, Silvana Editoriale, to be published.

Training

« Du corpus de recherche en humanités au projet numérique : une initiation par l’exemple », Léa Saint-Raymond (ENS-PSL).

PSL Intensive Week (Master degrees, PSL), in November 2022.