Gustave Geffroy was a French journalist, art critic

Art critic

An art critic is a person who specializes in evaluating art. Their written critiques, or reviews, are published in newspapers, magazines, books and on web sites...

, historian, and novelist. He was one of the ten founding members of the literary organization Académie Goncourt

Académie Goncourt

The Société littéraire des Goncourt , usually called the académie Goncourt , is a French literary organization based in Paris. It was founded by the French writer and publisher Edmond de Goncourt...

 in 1900.

Geffroy is noted as one of the earliest historians of the Impressionist art movement. He knew and championed Monet, whom he met in 1886 in Belle-Île-en-Mer while travelling for research on prisons of the Second Empire

Second French Empire

The Second French Empire or French Empire was the Imperial Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III from 1852 to 1870, between the Second Republic and the Third Republic, in France.-Rule of Napoleon III:...

. Monet introduced him to Cézanne, who painted his portrait

Portrait of Gustave Geffroy

Portrait of Gustave Geffroy is a c. 1895 painting by the French Post-Impressionist artist Paul Cézanne. It portrays Gustave Geffroy, a French novelist and art critic noted as one of the earliest historians of Impressionism...

 in 1895.

He contributed to the newspaper La Justice from 15 January 1880, and came to know its founder, Georges Clemenceau

Georges Clemenceau

Georges Benjamin Clemenceau was a French statesman, physician and journalist. He served as the Prime Minister of France from 1906 to 1909, and again from 1917 to 1920. For nearly the final year of World War I he led France, and was one of the major voices behind the Treaty of Versailles at the...

, who in 1908 appointed him director of the Gobelins tapestry factory

Gobelins manufactory

The Manufacture des Gobelins is a tapestry factory located in Paris, France, at 42 avenue des Gobelins, near the Les Gobelins métro station in the XIIIe arrondissement...

, a position he held until his death.

Geffroy was born and died in Paris, and is interred at the Cimetière de Montrouge

Montrouge

Montrouge is a commune in the southern Parisian suburbs, located from the center of Paris, France. It is one of the most densely populated municipalities in Europe...

. A street in Paris's 13th arrondissement, close to the Gobelins Manufactory, bears his name.

Principal works

Novels

• Le Cœur et l'esprit (1894)
• L'apprentie (1904)
• Hermine Gilquin (1907)
• La Comédie bourgeoise (1922)
• Cécile Pommier. (1) L'Éducation spirituelle (2) La Lutte des classes (2 volumes, 1923)

Fine arts

• Bernard Palissy (1881)
• Le Statuaire Rodin (1889)
• La Vie artistique (8 volumes, 1892-1903)
• Rubens (1902)
• Les Musées d'Europe (11 volumes, 1906-1908)
• Claude Monet (1920)
• René Lalique (1922)
• Sisley (1923)
• Auguste Brouet : catalogue de son œuvre gravé (2 volumes, 1923)
• Charles Meryon (1926)
• Corot
• Daumier

History

• L'Enfermé (1897)
• La Bretagne (1905)
• Clemenceau (1918)
• Constantin Guys, l'historien du Second Empire (1920)

Other

• Notes d'un journaliste: vie, littérature, théâtre (1887)
• Pays d'Ouest (1897)
• Les Minutes parisiennes, 2 heures. La Cité et l'île Saint-Louis (1899)
• L'Apprentie, historical drama in 4 acts, Paris, Théâtre de l'Odéon, 7 January 1908
• Les Bateaux de Paris (1903)
• Les Minutes parisiennes. 7 heures. Belleville (1903)
• Images du jour et de la nuit (1924)

External links