Ferdinand Joseph Gueldry 1858-1945

Joseph Ferdinand Gueldry was a French painter and illustrator, specializing in rowing scenes, and co-founder of the Société nautique de la Marne in 1876.

Ferdinand Gueldry was born on May 21, 1858, in Paris on Rue Amelot, to Henri-Sophie-Frédéric-Victor Gueldry and Marie-Adèle Ranck, both of Alsatian origin. He began painting at a very young age, as early as thirteen, and his parents encouraged him.

In 1874, he entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, joining the studio of the painter Jean-Léon Gérôme, which he attended until 1878.

During this period, he discovered rowing and became an accomplished “canoeist,” even organizing competitions on the Marne. Described as a robust young man, in 1876 he co-founded, with friends, the Société nautique de la Marne at Joinville-le-Pont on Fanac Island.

From 1881 onward, with his painting Une régate à Joinville, a large portion of his work depicted rowers or nautical scenes featuring athletes in striped jerseys and their spectators. This period corresponds to the 1880s–1890s; the painter settled in Bry-sur-Marne, where he maintained his studio while continuing to practice his sport.

An international rowing referee, he traveled several times to England, on the Thames, for the Henley Royal Regatta, from which he derived a painting, Sur la Tamise, which he kept for the rest of his life.

From a critical standpoint, as early as the 1880s, Bertall, Étienne Carjat, and Gil Blas praised Gueldry for his treatment of subjects, noting that he had managed to free himself from the influence of his master Gérôme while approaching the style of Édouard Manet. In 1902, Joris-Karl Huysmans wrote: “Mr. Gueldry is one of the rare painters who have attempted to free themselves from their academic memories and go straight to nature.”

A second phase of his work appears around 1885, when Gueldry broadened his subject matter to include factory interiors and the lives of workers in situ. Treated naturalistically, these scenes provide a documentary perspective on the Second Industrial Revolution. Gueldry applied his palette both in the North, capturing textile workers, and in the Creusot region. He also painted a few military scenes, seascapes, rural landscapes, interiors, and rare portraits. His work drew the attention of public authorities, who acquired several of his paintings.

In 1895, he married one of the daughters of Richard-Gabriel Morris, the son of a printer and promoter in Paris of the advertising columns that bear his name—a figure whom Gueldry had already portrayed in 1880. The couple had three children. Gueldry had met his future father-in-law because the latter had long been active in the association of the “Sauveteurs de la Seine.”

At the Salon of 1898, his painting Les buveurs de sang, depicting anemic women drinking the blood of a slaughtered ox in an abattoir, caused a sensation. It reveals another dimension of the artist’s work, representing urban life beyond factories.

In 1908, he was named a Knight of the Legion of Honor under the sponsorship of Édouard Detaille. During the First World War, he depicted the horrors of the trenches, including the inferno of Verdun.

In the 1920s, he served as president of the Société libre des artistes français, after resigning from the Société des artistes français in 1907. He died on February 17, 1945, in Lausanne, partly forgotten.

Gueldry participated in the Salon des artistes français starting in 1889, the year he received a third-class medal. He exhibited at the 1889 Exposition Universelle, earning a silver medal. In 1890, he was awarded a travel scholarship. He won another silver medal at the 1900 Exposition Universelle in Paris. Internationally, he exhibited at the World’s Fairs in Chicago (1893), Antwerp (1894), Brussels (1897), and St. Louis (1904). He also showed works in Munich (1888), Saint Petersburg (1890), and Moscow (1892). In 1912, he competed at the Stockholm Olympic Games in the unique art competitions, painting category, and was a finalist.

During his lifetime and before 1908, the French state acquired eleven of Gueldry’s paintings, of which only two depicted rowing.

Works in Public Collections

• Le Décapage des métaux (1886), Amiens, Musée de Picardie

• Rameurs sur la Seine [before 1905], Cahors, Musée de Cahors Henri-Martin

• Coucher de soleil à La Clarté, Côtes-du-Nord, Salon des arts et de la mer 1907, Musée de Dax

• Le Saut du barrage de Trilbardou (1895), Joinville-le-Pont, Hôtel de ville de Joinville

• Les Meuleurs (1888), Le Creusot, Écomusée de la Communauté urbaine Le Creusot-Montceau

• Le Laminoir (1901), Nîmes, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nîmes

• Match annuel entre la Société Nautique de la Marne et le Rowling Club (1882), Musée de Nogent-sur-Marne

• L'écluse de Molesey (1896), Musée de Nogent-sur-Marne

• Aux sources du canotage — Sur la Tamise (1896), Musée de Nogent-sur-Marne

• Scène de canotage près du pont de Bry (1900), Musée de Nogent-sur-Marne

• Sur la Marne. Scène de canotage à Bry-sur-Marne (1906), Musée de Nogent-sur-Marne

• L'Avant-port de Trouville or Dans l'avant-port (1906), Paris, Ministry of the Navy (location unknown)

• La Veille de Montmirail. 10 février 1814 (1904), Paris, Musée de l’Armée

• Le Laboratoire municipal de chimie (1887), Paris, Musée Carnavalet

• L'Estacade, 28 janvier 1910, Île Saint-Louis (1910), Paris, Musée Carnavalet

• Dragons à l'abreuvoir (1907), Paris, Musée du Luxembourg

• Promenade en yole (formerly Les plaisirs du canotage), circa 1906, Paris, Musée national de la Marine

• Une messe à Notre-Dame de La Clarté (Ploumanac’h) (1909), Musée des Beaux-Arts de Quimper

• L'Éclusée (1888), Reims, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Reims

• Scène de triage de la laine (1913), Roubaix, La Piscine

• Filature du Nord; mise en ballot de la laine (1913), Roubaix, La Piscine

• Une fonderie. Les Mouleurs (1885), Musée de Saint-Étienne

• Feu de la Saint-Jean, Côtes-du-Nord, Salon de 1908, Musée de Saint-Nazaire

• Mise à l'eau du outrigger à huit (1907), purchased by the State (location unknown)

• Un jour de régates, Salon de 1890, purchased by the State (location unknown)

• Les pavots (1885), Paris, private collection

• Une régate à Joinville-le-Pont (1881)

• La Guerre en dentelles (1897), San Francisco Museum

• Delaplane (1906), Nice, Musée National du Sport