Born in the French colony of Guadeloupe, Guillaume Guillon-Lethière (1760–1832), the son of a government official and plantation owner and a formerly enslaved woman of color, was a key figure in the history of art during the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.  As a painter, Lethière achieved the highest levels of recognition in his time. A favorite artist of Napoleon’s brother, Lucien Bonaparte, he served as director of the Académie de France in Rome from 1807 to 1816, as a member of the Institut de France beginning in 1818, and as a professor at the École des Beaux-Arts beginning in 1819. Despite his fame and influence during his lifetime, Lethière’s story has been all but lost to history. 

The Clark’s exhibition is the first major museum presentation on Lethière’s remarkable life and achievements and will provide new insights into questions relevant in the artist’s time regarding the reception and assessment of Caribbean art.