This biography from the Archives of AskART:
|  Is the life of an illustrator his natural life? "Born such and such, died then and when."
Is it his professional life? "Active from about 1890 to 1916."
Or is it the span of his work's influence and impact? How long he is remembered.
For Andre Castaigne, I can't tell you the answer to the first question
and I've already answered the second. So allow me to go to work
on the third.
By 1890, the growth of the illustrated magazine market was prodigious. The circulations of Scribner's, The Century and Harpers were
expanding at astonishing rates and the competition among them, and from
newcomers, was fierce. High on the list of attractions for
readers were the pictures, but there weren't enough good artists to
meet the demand.
Art schools sprang up in and around New York to train new illustrators,
but their progeny wouldn't mature for several years. Editors and
art directors turned their eyes East across the Atlantic. The
ateliers, studios, salons and academies of Europe were teeming with
young artists anxious to make good. Among them was a young
Frenchman named Andre Castaigne.
As one of the European artist recruited by the magazine publishers to
help meet the soaring demand for imagery each month, Andre Castaigne
seemed to appear fully developed into the May 1891 issue of The Century
with the illustration below for an article on Pioneer Mining in
California. That's the earliest that I've encountered his
work. It's amusing to consider that this image was probably
painted in France for an article on California most likely written by a
transplanted New Englander and published in New York. We can only guess
at the accuracy of the scene.
Although I like and collect Castaigne, I know nothing about him other
than he could paint anything with verisimilitude and he had an academic
air about his work. The technique used on the cowboys dancing was
worthy of the Paris salons, but that doesn't mean he studied there.
He's supposed to have. I spent several hours today scouring my
library for any reference material on Castaigne and here's exactly all
I could find about him (this from 200 Years of American Illustration by
Henry Pitz):
"Born in France, he studied art under Angouléme, a painter. In 1888 he
became a member of the Artists of France and from 1885 until 1896 he
painted portraits of famous people, an example of which is his piece
entitled Alexander le Grande a Memphis. In 1899 he was decorated with
the Légion d' honneur. A popular book illustrator, he
collaborated with W.T. Smedley and Orson Lowell to illustrate the
Scribner edition, Love in Old Clothes."
Two of the 36+ drawings and paintings for
Alexander the Great in The Century
(November 1898 through October 1899)
That's not much, and it turns out that it's not very accurate
either. Angouléme is a city and I can't find reference to any
artist or teacher with that name. The "Artists of France" seems
also to be a phantom organization that has left no trace in my
reference books. It's also very possible that the Alexander the
Great painting was one of the dozens he did on the subject for an
1898-99 twelve part series in The Century. And the roles
of the Légion de honneur show five Castaignes as recipients, but no
Andre and the most recent was born in 1830. He did, however,
produce three illustrations that were used in the 1896 Love in Old
Clothes - though 'collaborated' might be too strong a word since each
artist worked on a different story.
1/14/2001 - This just in courtesy of my old friend Ron Harris:
J. Andre Castaigne (don't know what the "J." is for) was born in 1860
and died in 1930 (see corrections at right). He was born in
Angouleme, which by coincidence is where the huge comic conventions of
the 1960s-1970s were held. Castaigne was a pupil of Gerome.
During 1885-1896 he entered several portraits in the annual Salons.
Sitters included J. A. Baker and the Vicomte de Dampierre, whoever they
were. He also contributed historical canvases, including A Scene from the Deluge (1887) and Armed Peace (1896). In 1889 Castaigne received an Honorable Mention, but I don't know what for.
In 1888 he became a member of the Society of French Artists. He
was represented in the Society's 1900 exhibition by a historical piece,
Alexander the Great at the Temple of Memphis, which seemed to
enjoy some popularity; and by a portrait drawing of then Pope Leo
XIII. I assume that sketching the Pope was a considerable
honor. At any rate Andre was doing all right, for he was
decorated with the Legion of Honor in 1899.
It's when Castaigne goes to America that information becomes
scarce. I know that he was a member of the Academy of Design in
the 1890s. He showed a Portrait of W.S.G. Baker (I wonder
if this was "J.A." from his Paris days) in their 1891 exhibition.
He listed his residence as Baltimore, Maryland; however his business
address at the time was care of the Century Company in New York.
The only other reference I could find was in an encyclopedia of
painters of the Old West. Castaigne was mentioned briefly in connection
with a series he illustrated on Indian tribal life. The commentator
said the illustrations were produced "with an anthropologist's eye for
accurate detail."
The paucity of information available after WWI makes me wonder.
Castaigne would have been 54 in 1914, so it's unlikely he went back to
France to fight in the War; yet his output falls off about that time.
I speculate Castaigne was living in the U.S. when he died on the flimsy
grounds that his death date was listed in American sources but not in
European references. Still, it's possible he spent his latter
years in Europe, and that's why we no longer saw him in over here.
Castaigne must have been doing some trans-Atlantic shuttling around the
turn of the century, since he was showing in France and illustrating in
America at the same time.
Thanks to Ron for some facts. Now let's check how well I did on my own.
er 4/17/2001
This recent update to our quest for information on Andre Castaigne is courtesy of :
François Castaigne
Directeur,
Département des sciences des aliments et de nutrition
Faculté des sciences de l'agriculture et de l'alimentation,
Université Laval,
G1K7P4,Québec,
Canada
Andre Castaigne's first names were Jean Alexandre Michel Andre, and
more specifically Jean Andre. He was born in France on the 21st
of January, 1861, and died in 1929. I think that Ron Harris
informations on those two dates are wrong. This information comes
from Jean Eusebe Castaigne who had known Andre pretty well (he was his
uncle).
Jean-Alexandre-Michel-André CASTAIGNE
Artiste peintre; beaux-arts; jeux olympiques 1896
Né le 21 janvier 1861
Décédé en 1929
À l'âge de 68 ans
Parents
Jean Eusèbe Joseph CASTAIGNE 1828
Mathilde DEBOUCHAUD
Merci, François. Little by little we're learning ...
So, what can I tell you about him? I believe he's French, not
just due to his name, but because he also dedicates one of the books he
wrote to "his many friends in America..." That book is Fata Morgana,
from 1904 and it is profusely illustrated with plates and line drawings
like those at left and right. Another clue is that occasionally
his paintings indicate, along with the date and signature, that they
were done in New York - a practice many artists used to denote work
done away from home.
As to his age, I suggest that he was probably fairly young (under 25)
when he did the 'Mining in California' piece above. I base that
on the large, rather simplistic signature he used there, and in only a
few other early pieces. My experience is that artists, very early
on in their careers, settle on a signature and keep it. They
might develop and/or embellish it over time, but seldom make radical
changes. So let's put a lower limit of 1865 on the birthdate,
making him about 26 in 1891 when he starts working in America and
nearly forty when he wrote his first book. (see above for some real
numbers.)
He was a prolific feature in The Century, with over 160
illustrations before the end of 1895. That's nearly a painting a week
for over three years. If he had time to paint "portraits of
famous people", odds are that these turned up in American magazines.
He worked steadily for The Century until at least 1916 and in Harpers from 1901 to 1913. His work is also found at Scribner's as early as 1892 and as late as 1914. He appears in McClures between 1902 and 1910, and I've even seen one illustration in Everybody's from 1910. And the one other reference to him that I found (in The Dictionary of Book Illustrators and Caricaturists 1800-1914) reads in full: "Illustrator of royal events and social subjects for The Graphic, 1902,03 and 1905-10."
Plus he did dozens of books.
I'm especially fond of his color-plate books. They're not common - he
perhaps did half a dozen. The image at the top of the page is from a
1911 orientalist adventure tale by Harold Macgrath titled The Carpet From Baghdad. But it was another 1911 potboiler that brought him his taste of everlasting fame.
Published by Bobbs-Merrill and luridly titled The Phantom of the Opera,
this story by Gaston Leroux has survived the decades and brought the
one reminder of Andre Castaigne along with it. There was even a
fairly modern (1988) illustrated reprint of the book from Mysterious
Press.
One of the very unique aspects of The Phantom is the nature of
the plates. There are four of them, one of which is the standard
frontispiece opposite the title page. Even this is a trifle
different in that it is not bounded by a border, and the image bleeds
of the paper at all four edges. The other three plates, however,
are printed the width of the book and then folded and turned 90º. So if
you were looking at the plate at left, you'd have opened the book and
turned it a quarter turn to the right. I've seen this technique
used on an occasional basis in a book, but never as the standard method
for all the interior plates. Makes for gloriously large images,
though. Click on the image for a larger sample.
Other books include the works of many of the most popular authors of the day: The Adventures of Francois by S. Weir Mitchell, The Maids of Paradise by Robert W. Chambers, The Marshal by Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews, The Money Master by Gilbert Parker, The Wonder-Book of Horses by James Baldwin, and The Valiants of Virginia
by Hallie Erminie Rives. This last being simply another
heart-throb society romance pot-boiler, but Castaigne used it to show
that he could be just as flashy as Christy or Fisher.
After 1916, or about at the age of 50 if our calculations are right,
Castaigne disappears from print - at least from the contents of my
library. I found one reference to him on the web with a death
date of 1930. But, this listed him as being born in 1890, too, so
I'm inclined to take that information with a grain of salt.
So, let's just say that Andre Castaigne spent about 25 years painting
and drawing beautiful pictures for mass reproduction. All the
information that's scattered across the net about him is merely mention
of his name as an illustrator of a book - most often The Phantom of the Opera.
Source:
Written & © 2000 by Jim Vadeboncoeur, Jr., who gave permission for its use here.
http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/castaign.htm
|
Biography from Crocker Art Museum Store:
| Portrait painter, illustrator. Born in Angouleme, France in 1860. Castaigne studied in Paris with Gérome. He was active in San Francisco from the early 1890s until the earthquake in 1906. During 1900-01 he was in NYC as an illustrator for the Century Company. He died in Paris, France in 1930.
Member: Legion of Honor (1899). Exh: Society of French Artist, 1888-96. In: Bancroft Library, UC Berkeley. Century, Jan. 1893; Sam; Ben; AAA 1901; SF Call, 1-4-1904, 14/6. | | Nearly 20,000 biographies can be found in Artists in California 1786-1940 by Edan Hughes and is available for sale ($150). For a full book description and order information please click here. |
| ** If you discover credit omissions or have additional information to add, please let us know at registrar@AskART.com. |
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