Francois Furet

Francois Furet is not a well-known artist today, however he was often commissioned around the turn of the twentieth century in Switzerland and France to produce landscapes and traditional academic compositions. He was, perhaps, best known for his murals, and worked mainly in oils, though sometimes executed watercolors as well.

Trained primarily by Barthlemy Menn (who was working in a manner after the Barbizon painters), at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Geneva between 1860 and 1865, Furet preferred to work en plein air when not completing mural commissions. The painter was also a lifetime student of art, and actively worked to keep pace with the ever-changing French art world of the late 1800s; until about 1900, Furet spent part of every year in Paris in order to gain insight into current artistic trends. His own personal style was influenced by Menn's Barbizon aesthetic, and was essentially realistic, though his color palette was informed by Impressionism.

Because many of Furet's works were produced in the mural format, his painting is not widely represented in present-day public collections. Despite exhibiting work at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago and winning a bronze medal at the Universelle Exposition in Paris in 1889, his work resides mainly in private collections throughout Europe, and in North and South America.