Victor Vignon was a French Impressionist artist, born in 1847 into an artistic family. Vignon had an early introduction to art as his mother was a sculptor who worked under the name ‘Claude Vignon’.
In the 1870s he met the artist Camille Pissarro, who introduced him to his circle in Auvers-sur-Oise. Vignon also became friends with Vincent Van Gogh in 1880 when he settled in L’lsle-Adam. It was during this time that the renowned collector Dr. Paul Gachet became one of Vignon’s best customers, helping to skyrocket his reputation.
However, at the fifth, sixth and seventh Impressionist Exhibitions Vignon was publically criticized by Claude Monet for his departure away from impressionist, namely his sharp outlines, which Monet believed not to be truly impressionistic. The critics Roger Marx and Felix Feneon echoed this criticism in the 1890s, stating that Vignon’s work was closer resembled to Old Dutch Masters than the Impressionists. Consequently, due to this criticism Vignon’s work was rejected from several exhibitions, including the Salon.
However, Vignon was able to exhibit his work in the Éxposition Universelle in 1900 and three years later Pierre-Auguste Renoir and Paul Durand-Ruel organized a retrospective of his work. Following the death of Victor Vignon in 1909, Renoir and Julie Manet-Rouart organized another exhibition to celebrate his life’s work. Today his work is held in many important public and private collections worldwide.
