Augusto Chartrand
Period: Colonial
1828 - 1899

Scene of the Canímar River
Escena del Río Canímar , 1876
oil on panel
8 3/4 x 13 inches. NOT FOR SALE

Augusto Chartrand Dubois was born in Charleston, South Carolina, on January 23, 1828. Augusto, Philippe and Esteban belong to the trio of brothers Chartrand who developed the art of painting and focused on the theme of Cuban landscape. Augusto studied in France from the ages of nine and through nineteen. He traveled throughout several European countries, besides Canada, China, India and different regions of the United States. He was known as an eccentric person, as well as a musician, explorer, adventurer and womanizer. His dedication to painting was occasional, since other occupations like the management of the family’s sugar refinery and other businesses demanded a lot of time from him. Until recent years, this artist had been forgotten by the art experts, but the accidental find of two small canvases containing scenes of the Canimar river, in Matanzas, was enough to begin “the rediscovery” of this fine landscape painter of melancholic production and romantic palette. Like his brothers, he preferred rural scenes of his beloved Matanzas. At the New Yorker Goupil Gallery -which represented him from 1879 to his death- he exposed at least seven documented works; two of them scenes of the Yumuri Valley and others of Matanzas’ marinas. He lived totally convinced of his brothers’ pictorial merits and of his own. In a farewell letter addressed to his niece Rosa Chartrand, not too long before his death, Augusto said to her that Esteban and he “would become part of the History of the World”. He passed away just a few days afterward, on August 25, 1899, in Matanzas, Cuba.