Background
Guillaume was born at Montbard on the Côte-d'Or on the 4th of July 1822.
Guillaume was born at Montbard on the Côte-d'Or on the 4th of July 1822.
He studied under Cavelier, Millet, and Barrias, at the École des Beaux-Arts, which he entered in 1841.
Guillaume became director of the École des Beaux-Arts in 1864, and director-general of Fine Arts from 1878 to 1879, when the office was suppressed. Many of his works have been bought for public galleries, and his monuments are to be found in the public squares of the chief cities of France.
At Rheims there is his bronze statue of “Colbert, ” at Dijon his “Rameau” monument. The Luxembourg Museum has his “Anacreon” (1852), “Les Gracques” (1853), “Faucheur” (1855), and the marble bust of “Mgr Darboy”; the Versailles Museum the portrait of “Thiers”; the Sorbonne Library the marble bust of “Victor le Clerc, doyen de la faculté des lettres. ”
Other works of his are at Trinity Church, St Germain l’Auxerrois, and the church of St Clotilde, Paris.
The works of Guillaume were distinguished by unique composition and the elegance of the shape. His most prominent works were “Anacreon”, Church of St Clotilde, "Reaper" and others. Guillaume also made many portraits and busts: Colbert (Reims), Pascal (Clermont-Ferrand), Rameau (Dijon), Claude Bernard, Duban.
In 1845 he won the Rome Prize at the École des Beaux-Arts with "Theseus finding on a rock his father's sword".
He was elected member of the Académie Française in 1862, and in 1891 was sent to Rome as director of the Académie de France in that city. He was also elected an honorary member of the Royal Academy, London, 1869, on the institution of that class.
