Jean de Botton
1898-1978
 
Jean de Botton had a long and prolific career as painter, illustrator and muralist. His successful career started in the 1920s and continued for four decades. Though he received a degree in Philosophy from the Lycée Rollins in Paris he went on to travel extensively and become a well-established artist.
 
De Botton’s early paintings display many of the characteristics of the age of Art Deco, incorporating romantic, allegorical, and historical themes with a modern technique. He executed many very large canvases in the 1920’s. He also painted many stylized portraits. As the decades passed his style changed with the times; in the 1950s and into the 1960s he painted and exhibited many abstract compositions.
 
De Botton served on the jury of the Salon d’Automne and was a member of the Salon des Tuileries, Salon des Indépéndants, Salon des Humoristes. He was Vice President of the Salon and President of the Salon France Nouvellle.
 
Solo Exibitions between 1936 and 1942 include the Marie Harriman Gallery, New York; the Rockefeller Center, New York, Carol Carstairs Gallery; Leger & Co. Gallery, London; Seattle Museum; San Diego Museum; Philadelphia Art Gallery, Grace Gallery, Boston; Galerie du Livre, Casablana; Santa Barbara Museum; Pearl Gallery, Hollywood; Vista del Arroyo, Pasadena; Francis Tayor Gallery, Beverly Hills; Courvoisier Gallery, San Francisco; and the Knoedler & Co. Gallery, New York.
 
De Botton participated in several Carnegie Institute International Exhibitions in Pittsburg, Boston and Chicago. He showed the Official Exhibition of French Art in Tokyo, Brussels and Anvers as well. In 1925 de Botton exhibited a mural at the Salon d’Honneur des Beaux-Arts, Paris and in 1937 at the Palace of the Navy, Paris. De Botton also received the distinguished honor of serving as the official painter at the coronation of H.M. King George VI in 1937. 
 
Book illustrations include Les Fleurs du Mal by Baudelair, 1936; Claude by Fauconnier, edition Firenczi; La Maison du Quai by Caston Cherau, edition Firenczi; and a children’s book entitled Fou Fou Discovers America. In 1942 de Botton designed a poster for the California National Guard as well.
 
He delivered a lecture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art in 1941 on the subject of Chiaroscuro and his theory of its detrimental effect on modern painting. 
 
In June of 1944 the California Palace of the Legion of Honor held a retrospective de Botton’s paintings, frescoes, murals, drawings, tapestries and book illustrations. The same year he had written the ballet Triumph of Hope, which was performed at the San Francisco Opera House.
 
Museums in Luxembourg, Versailles and Royan have collected his work.  - PAPILLON GALLERY