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

Lea SAINT-RAYMOND (Teacher-researcher/ ENS-PSL)

Published on

12 July 2021

, updated on

2 June 2022

Between the beginning of the 20^th 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.

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.

Team

Founder: Léa Saint-Raymond

Collaborators: Jessie Abad, Anaïs Chazel, Marie Durif Varambon, Rémi Emorine, Alix Enée, Darlène Kuyu, Maximilien Lecordier and Léa Monteil

Engineer: Jérémy Pedrazzi

Associates: Juliette Tacail, Christian Theuveny and Claude Petit-Castelli (independent scholars)

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.