Le Clovis
Mount: 24 × 19 15/16 inches (60.96 × 50.64 cm)
Magnificent Gifts for the 75th. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, February 13 - April 4, 2010, no cat.
Impressionist France: Visions of Nation from Le Gray to Monet. The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 19 October 19, 2013- February 9, 2014, Saint Louis Art Museum, March 16 - July 6, 2014, no. 48.
Eugène Cuvelier was raised among the landscape artists of the Barbizon school—including Corot, Millet and Rousseau—who commonly drew inspiration from nature and rural life; their style powerfully influenced Cuvelier’s photography. He lived in the village of Barbizon, on the edge of the beautiful and mysterious Fontainebleau forest. Producing a broad and inventive body of work, Cuvelier’s photographs unite a high artistic ambition with a deep understanding of the nature of camera vision.
This large oak tree was located in the north-central area of the forest of Fontainebleau and was named for Frankish King Clovis I (ca. 466–511). This tree came to represent the age, beauty and dignity of France and is often unofficially acknowledged as the national tree of France.
