Bonaventure
Dateby 1969
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 31 3/8 × 21 1/4 inches (79.7 × 54 cm)
Credit LineGift of Marian Bouché.
Object number1969.12
Copyright© Estate of Louis Bouché.
The images and text contained on this page are owned by Telfair Museums or used by the Museum with permission from the owners. Unauthorized reproduction, transmission or display of these materials is prohibited with the exception of items deemed “fair use” as defined by U.S. and international copyright laws.Label TextLouis Bouché is noted for his painterly, realist depictions of American people and places. Bouché was exposed to European art at a young age by his designer father and studied art in Paris until the outbreak of World War I. He trained at the Art Students League in New York and worked in a variety of modes from Impressionism to Cubism to Realism. This undated painting is consistent with Bouché’s largely realist approach in his work of the 1940s–1960s. Local newspapers mention Bouché in Savannah twice during that period, and Telfair’s Board minutes regarding the painting Bonaventure indicated that it was made when he was involved with an “art colony” in Savannah. This may be a reference to Bouché’s early studio mate and friend Alexander Brook, whose studio on Bay Street was a focal point for other artists in the 1930s and 1940s.
In Bouché’s painting of Bonaventure, three young women are shown visiting the cemetery’s historic Kollock plot against a backdrop of Spanish moss. Their casual attire suggests spring or summer and that the women may be tourists. The woman on the right appears to hold a folding camera, popular in the 1940s. The woman in the red dress stands in front of an urn-topped obelisk (destroyed by a falling tree during Hurricane Matthew in 2016) that marked the grave of Ann Marion Johnston. Of the painting, the artist’s widow, Marion Bouché, wrote: “Louis considered it one of his best. And how hard he worked on that Spanish Moss which he loved!”Subject MatterBonaventure Cemetery, 330 Bonaventure Road, Thunderbolt, Georgia, United States of America
