the artist's garden
17.00 (GMT) / 12.00 (EST)
THURSDAY 22 FEBRUARY 2024
London Art Week presents an online conversation with David Messum (Chairman, David Messum Fine Art) and Emma House (Curator, Garden Museum) about the upcoming exhibition: Jean-Marie Toulgouat 2024 opening on 6 March 2024 at David Messum Fine Art, who represent the Artist's Estate.
The talk will encompass Giverny, Toulgouat growing up there, it's influence on him, his involvement in restoring the gardens and their importance to Monet, other historic artists gardens including David Messum's own - his house was used by Bloomsbury Group - and Benton End, which in 2021 was majority gifted to the Garden Museum.
Born in Giverny in 1928, Jean-Marie Toulgouat grew up surrounded by Impressionist masterpieces and beautiful gardens. The great-grandson of Claude Monet (by marriage), he returned to Giverny in the 1960s, and was closely involved in the restoration of Monet's gardens. He created his own distinctive oeuvre of vibrantly coloured oil paintings of the gardens at Giverny, capturing his personal relationship with the land.
The gallery's exhibition is held in conjunction with Jean-Marie Toulgouat: Gardening Giverny, a second exhibition devoted to the garden paintings of the artist (13 March - 24 April 2024) at the Garden Museum.
The webinar will be chaired and moderated by Patrick Duffy, Archivist and Researcher at David Messum Fine Art.
Book your place now to join the conversation!
David Messum started his own art dealership in 1963 with a shop in Bourne End, Buckinghamshire. His name is now synonymous with the art dealership of West London. Today, David continues to exhibit works of art by 18th, 19th and 20th Century British artists, on whose names the reputation of the company was founded, together with a regularly changing exhibition program focusing on the Contemporary Artists and Artist Estates managed by the company.
Emma House is Curator at the Garden Museum and in 2020 curated the museum's award-winning exhibition Derek Jarman: My Garden's Boundaries are the Horizon. Her work centres on the exploration of artist's gardens and her research focuses on gardens as places of social commentary, creative practice, and wellbeing. Jean-Marie Toulgouat: Gardening Giverny is the latest in a series of exhibitions which study artists and their gardens starting with Cedric Morris in 2018, Lucian Freud and Jean Cooke continuing through to Antiguan artist Frank Walter. Emma is currently researching the gardens of Cecil Beaton for a forthcoming exhibition at the Museum.
Patrick Duffy was the Associate Director of The Fine Art Society before joining David Messum Fine Art. For nearly a decade he has established relationships with a community of specialists and dealers working in Mayfair and St James's. As the archivist at David Messum Fine Art, he continues his research and writing on late nineteenth and early twentieth century British art and artists, and is dedicated to producing academic and curated exhibitions.
Jean-Marie Toulgouat, Dahlias Etoile, 2004. Courtesy David Messum Fine Art.
About Jean-Marie Toulgouat (1927-2006)
Giverny needs little introduction to anyone interested in the history of European art. The gardens that Claude Monet created are among the most famous in the world. It was in to this artistic, impressionistic world that Jean-Marie Toulgouat was born, nine months after Monet's death. Jean-Marie Toulgouat was Monet's great-grandson by marriage and he was born, grew up in and died at Giverny - just around the corner from Monet's home and garden. It was there, in Monet's old house and studio, among his audacious late canvases, that the young Toulgouat grew up.
Toulgouat started to paint aged about seven. His great-aunt, Blanche Hoschedé-Monet, who gave him lessons, had often painted by Monet's side, and became a respected and highly valued artist in her own right. Toulgouat also took painting lessons from his American grandfather, Theodore Butler, who had settled in Giverny in 1888. His link to Monet, though subtle, is clearly visible in his distinctive, brightly impressionistic yet also searingly modern pictures of flowers and gardens.
In his lifetime Toulgouat exhibited in France, The Netherlands and the USA. He also had regular shows in London, where his paintings proved very popular. The late, great critic Brian Sewell was one admirer. 'Often the pictures work both as a sea of colour and as an organized pictorial distance, as bright abstraction and the reality of summer heat,' Sewell wrote in World of Interiors way back in February 1987. 'Nothing is left to accident or serendipitous disorder - the limited palette and the underlying discipline of the technique ensure that the effects are precisely predictable, and that no picture expresses more or less than Toulgouat intended, in spite of the impressions of breath, speed and spontaneity implied in the handling ... The inheritance from Claude Monet is unmistakable.'
David Messum Fine Art represents the Estate of Jean-Marie Toulgouat.
To learn more about the Estate of Jean-Marie Toulgouat and our forthcoming exhibition in March 2024, please contact the gallery on +44(0)20 72874448 or email info@messums.com
Visit the gallery at 12 Bury Street, St. James's, London SW1Y 6AB to explore Jean-Marie Toulgouat 2024 running from 6 March to 4 April 2024 and book your visit to Jean-Marie Toulgouat: Gardening Giverny on display at the Garden Museum from 13 March to 24 April 2024.
Please note all works included in the Garden Museum's exhibition are available for purchase in aid of the Garden Museum's educational and community programmes.
Follow David Messum Fine Art
Follow the Garden Museum