Ernest de Saisset

Ernest de Saisset (1864, San Jose, California - 1899, San Jose) was an American painter of French ancestry. He is best known for landscapes, portraits and nudes. The De Saisset Museum in Santa Clara is named after him.

Ernest de Saisset
Self-portrait (c.1895)
Born1864
Died1899
Alma materSanta Clara University
Portrait of his sister, Isabel

Biography

His father, Pierre de Saisset (1829-1902), came from a notable French family that included Vice-Admiral Jean-Marie Saisset. Upon immigrating to California to take advantage of the Gold Rush, he changed his name to Pedro, becoming a businessman and French consular agent; later serving as Vice-Consul. Years later, he helped incorporate and served as President of the Brush Electric Light Company branch in San Jose. Ernest's mother, Maria Palomares, was a native Californian who had recently been widowed and owned a large ranch.[1]

Ernest attended classes at Santa Clara College. While there, he received prizes in French, elocution, calligraphy and design, which was awarded in 1883 for an oil painting. He therefore decided to pursue a career in art and, unable to find what he felt was adequate instruction there, went to Paris to attend the Académie Julian.

With the assistance of an uncle who lived there, he was able to find a studio near the Académie. He stayed in Paris for nine years altogether, studying with Jules Lefebvre, Jean-Joseph Benjamin-Constant and William Bouguereau, among others. At one point, he tried to set up an exhibit at the Salon, but was discouraged by what he felt was favoritism for native-born French people.[2]

In 1895, he returned to California; painting nudes, landscapes and numerous portraits. He died only a few years later, at the age of thirty-five, of what was diagnosed as "rheumatism".[1] His sister Isabel, who died in 1950, bequeathed a large sum for the establishment of an art museum, to be named in his honor, at Santa Clara University. It was dedicated in 1955 and contains most of his extant paintings.

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References
  1. De Saisset family history @ Santa Clara University.
  2. California history, volume 79, California Historical Society, 2000, pg. 177.

Further reading
  • "Ernest Pierre de Saisset (1864–1899)", in Who Was Who in American Art, Peter Hastings Falk, General editor, Sound View Press, 1985 ISBN 978-0-932087-00-3
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