A 20th-century French realist and impressionist painter best known for marine subjects, Jean Rigaud was born in Bordeaux, France, in 1912, just before the beginning of World War I. He also painted French village scenes and works inspired by his extensive travels to Spain, Egypt, and Morocco. For the French government, he served as an official Marine Painter and, in that capacity, traveled to the United States aboard the ship Jean Bart.

His early training came from his father, artist and teacher Pierre Gaston Rigaud, who encouraged both his son and his students to develop their own individual approaches to painting. Rigaud later enrolled at the École des Beaux-Arts in the atelier of André Devambez.

In 1925, Rigaud began exhibiting at the Paris Salons, marking the beginning of a prolific exhibition career that included fifty-three solo exhibitions between 1938 and 1974. Galerie Durand-Ruel featured his work in exhibitions every other year between 1956 and 1974, the last of which became the gallery’s final exhibition. Among his honors were a Gold Medal at the 1937 International Exhibition in Paris, the 1953 Prix du Maroc, and designation as an official “Painter of the French Navy” in 1956.

Museums that hold his work include the National Museums of France, the Musée de Tours, the Musée de Poitiers, and the Musée de Strasbourg.

Shortly after Rigaud’s death in 1999 at his home in Guyenne, France, the Musée national de la Marine at the Palais de Chaillot in Paris organized a retrospective exhibition of his work.

Source: “Jean Rigaud.” Dictionnaire des Artistes Cotés (Dicart)