George Louis Viavant (1872-1925)
Native New Orleanian George Louis Viavant grew up hunting in the swamps surrounding his father’s hunting lodge on Gentilly Road. Viavant’s appreciation of the flora and fauna of southern Louisiana were reflected in his nature morte watercolors and oil paintings of ducks and turkeys in their native habitats. At the age of twelve, Viavant studied art at Southern Art Union with Achille Perelli, who was known for his sculptures and nature morte watercolors. At the 1884 World’s Industrial Cotton Centennial Exposition, the young Viavant won a blue ribbon for a landscape painting.
To insure the accuracy of his images, Viavant painted from fresh game that he had caught or that his hunter and fishermen friends brought to his studio. Many of his patrons were hunters and fishermen, who admired his depiction of the wildlife.
Soon after his marriage to Sarah Grinstead in 1899, the newlyweds moved to the rural Gentilly Road property that George had such fond memories of as a child.
Information courtesy of Neal Auction Company