FRENCH ARTIST COMMUNITIES TALK 2: THE PONT AVEN PAINTERS

Sat 13 Dec 2025, 11am–12pm

At the Museum and Online

This event takes place in-person at the Museum, and online via Zoom.

Tickets are £8 each. Booking is essential.

Tickets will be available to book soon

With Juliet Heslewood, Author and Art Historian

The second in a series of four talks examining four communities of French artists: The Barbizon school, the Painters of Pont Aven. Van Gogh and Gauguin in Arles, and The Fauves – the ‘Wild Beasts’ of the Mediterranean.

Brittany held a fascination for many, far from Paris in the distant north west of France. Once the railway reached inland, its unique culture fascinated many visitors. Artists soon painted aspects of the religious devotion felt by the Bretons and the picturesque appearance of their traditional clothing. It was also very cheap to live there and in Pont Aven one ‘pension’ offered artists favourable terms.

Gauguin’s style changed radically during his several visits while his young friend Emile Bernard helped to develop Cloisonnism, with reference to local stained glass. . Pont Aven became a congenial place in which artists were able to explore alternative ways to represent contemporary rural life.