Regis Gignoux

(1816-1882)

Gignoux met a young American woman in Europe, followed her back to the United States, married her, and remained there for the next thirty years. Definitely this sounds like a French artist. Already welltrained by 1840, in America Gignoux made his presence as an artist felt and adapted very well to the precepts of the Hudson River School tradition. He was elected to the National Academy of Design, became the first president of the Brooklyn Art Association, and became the teacher and close friend of George Inness. In 2002, this rural farm scene turned up at auction, and I was particularly attracted to it because it’s a winter piece (for which he was known), and because snowscapes are significantly more rare in mid– 19th-century work than among the later Impressionists, who loved snow images.