Have you ever heard of Guillaume Lethière? I didn’t think so. Nor had I, though this neo-classical French painter has been hiding in plain sight for the past century. Two of his massive historical paintings have been hanging in the Louvre all this time—but well up out of sight in a room that sells knick-knacks once you’ve finished looking at the Mona Lisa.
Now the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown has teamed up with the Louvre to present the first solo exhibit of this once well-known, now nearly forgotten, painter.