GEORGE LOUIS VIAVANT
(American | New Orleans, 1872-1925)

Native New Orleanian George Louis Viavant grew up hunting in the swamps and bayous surrounding his father's hunting lodge on Gentilly Road.  Viavant's appreciation of the nature of southern Louisiana was reflected in his nature mortewatercolor paintings of birds, small animals, fish, crabs and crawfish, which he began painting as a boy.  Like his Southern Art Union teacher and mentor Achille Perelli, he was widely acclaimed for this style of painting and won awards at exhibitions in New Orleans. To ensure the accuracy of his images, Viavant painted from fresh game that he had hunted or that fishermen brought to his studio.

Viavant often spent several days painting the same bird, constantly changing the hanging to show different sides of the body and views of the feathers.  The purple gallinule presented here is a very rare bird in the oeuvre of Viavant, with only one other example of this bird currently documented and now conserved in The Johnson Collection, Spartanburg, SC.  A colorful marsh bird with striking plumage, purple gallinules are not as commonly hunted as mallards, teal and quail, which is perhaps why Viavant did not paint them as often. 

 References:

 Jordan, George E., George L. Viavant: Artist of the Hunt, New Orleans: The Historic New Orleans Collection, 2003. 

 Mahé, John A. and Rosanne McCaffrey, ed., Encyclopedia of New Orleans Artists 1718-1918, Historic New Orleans Collection, 1987.

 Sartisky, Michael, ed., A Unique Slant of Light: The Bicentennial History of Art in Louisiana, New Orleans: The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, 2012.

Nature Morte of a Purple Gallinule, 1917

watercolor on paper, signed, dated and inscribed “N.O.” lower right, sight 22 x 10 in., framed.
SOLD