LONDON.- The first, ever overview of the art of John Louis Petit (1801 – 1868) - whose work was lost for 120 years – will be published on 12 September 2022. It is presented in an accessible volume for all art lovers as well as the art world’s cognoscenti.

Art critic Andrew Graham-Dixon said: “There has been nothing like this in the field of British art for a long time. This book marks the rediscovery of a more or less completely forgotten master – an artist whose work, particularly in the medium of watercolour, reaches the highest peaks of innovation and virtuosity, worthy of comparison with that even of Turner. High praise, but not too high.”

In this beautifully illustrated book, author Philip Modiano compares Petit with his mid-century contemporaries in Britain and France and demonstrates that almost uniquely in Britain after the death of J.M.W. Turner in 1851, Petit foreshadowed Impressionism in contrast to the Pre-Raphaelites (founded 1848) and mainstream classical artists.

Petit painted almost exclusively in watercolours, completing well over 10,000 works although, sadly, only around half of his output survives.

Born into a relatively wealthy family in Staffordshire, Petit was descended from French Huguenots and studied at Cambridge, graduating in 1825. The following year he was ordained into the Church of England and began working as a curate, first in Lichfield and then Essex.

In 1834 he resigned from church work to pursue his twin interests of architecture and art. These he pursued relentlessly until his death in 1868. Without children, his estate was split among sisters with one nephew eventually inheriting nearly all the art.

Unlike his contemporaries, Petit did not paint for commercial reasons and never compromised what he wanted to show. His landscapes paintings, the most experimental and artistically significant, capture life in Victorian England and France as it was and demonstrate the spiritual wonder of nature without the ‘prettiness’ of conventional Victorian art.

Petit also routinely painted many medieval churches in their settings, close and far. Without indulging in artificial picturesque ‘licence’, he painted them to show the beauty of all styles, as he fought a lonely battle against the conformity of the Gothic Revival.

Petit’s work was widely exhibited and shown at his lectures on architecture, making him in the mid-19th-centry both admired and famous as an artist of great skill. But Petit never tried or planned to sell his work, and so it remained within the family, lying hidden for 120 years until the collection was discovered in an attic or outbuilding of a house in Surrey that had belonged to Petit’s grandniece.

Unaware of the cultural importance of the find, the property’s new owners dumped the works in local auctions in the 1980s and 1990s, hundreds per lot, after which dealers dispersed them widely.

As a result, it has taken decades for a representative range of Petit’s oeuvre to be tracked down for the first time and distilled into an easy-to-read volume. The book includes more than 100 illustrations showing the range of Petit’s art across his career from the 1820s to 1868.

Writing in the foreword, Dr Trevor James says: “The story of John Louis Petit is extraordinary. From national treasure in the 1850s and 1860s he was almost entirely forgotten. Now the authenticity and passion of the artist shines through the 150 years and we see a uniquely modern artist, remarkably accessible to a younger generation.”

Andrew Graham Dixon adds: “What is also extraordinary about Petit’s work is the breadth of his subject matter and his remarkable lack of sentimentality. Few Victorian artists chose to bear witness to the effects of the Industrial Revolution on the fabric of life in this country, but Petit did anything but shy away from it: he painted factories and smogs with the same impassioned interest that he brought to the more traditional themes of the English watercolourist, such as village, church and cathedral. To look at his work is to see a familiar world changing out of all recognition, and to understand the pace at which it was happening. In this sense he is a prophet of Impressionism, a true “painter of modern life”, to borrow a phrase from Baudelaire. What Philip Modiano has done for Petit, he deserves our thanks and our congratulations.”

Robin Simon, editor of the British Art Journal commented “a wonderful artist, a master of atmospheric effects and of truth to nature: truly, a pre-Impressionist”

The author, Philip Modiano says:” It must now be time that Petit comes out of the cupboards in which he has lurked, forgotten, for generations, and takes his rightful place at the top table. For this book I managed to find only about one third to one half of what is out there. There are many more Petit pictures all over the country, in the USA and in Europe, which were bought casually 30 years ago as dealers pushed them out cheaply. Some will have lost their attribution. This is the start not the end of re-discovering Petit’s art.”

Published by RPS Publications on 12th September 2022, J.L. Petit – Britain’s Lost Pre-Impressionist will be available for £20 from selected bookshops and online.