Paul Camille Guigou was born on February 15, 1834 in Villars (Vaucluse) into a wealthy family of farmers and notaries. He went to college in Apt where his qualities did not go unnoticed by his drawing teacher. Paul Guigou was then a notary's clerk in Marseille from 1854 to 1861. The painting of Gustave Courbet, which he discovered during the Universal Exhibition of 1855, strongly influenced him throughout his period in Marseille. He trained at the Beaux-Arts in Marseille, one of the most original and active schools in France. The director Émile Loubon, close to the painters of the Barbizon School, stimulates the students' taste for landscape and encourages them to paint on the subject. Loubon, gives him access to the salons he organizes as part of the Society of Friends of the Arts of Marseille. In 1863, upon Loubon's death, Paul Guigou left Marseille permanently for Paris. He lives at 44, rue de la Tour-d'Auvergne. There he frequented the Guerbois café, a meeting place for many future impressionist painters. He became a friend of the southern painter Frédéric Bazille, Alfred Sisley and Claude Monet. However, his paintings remain essentially representations of a calm and peaceful Haute-Provence that he finds every summer. His very luminous landscapes are frequently staged in wide panoramas which give an important part to a bright blue sky. These favorite subjects extend from the scrublands of the Luberon to the banks of the Durance, from Plan-d'Orgon to Saint-Saturnin-lès-Apt, from the hills of Allauch to the Etang de Berre. His paintings were regularly exhibited from 1863 to 1870 at the Paris Salon. Having left the capital before the war and the Commune, Paul Guigou returned there, hired by Baroness de Rothschild as a drawing teacher, a position which was finally to provide him with a stable income. He died suddenly on December 21, 1871 as a result of cerebral congestion. After his death, his work fell into oblivion for almost thirty years; it was the Centennial Exhibition of French Art of 1900, organized as part of the Universal Exhibition of 1900 in Paris, which led to its rediscovery. In the 21st century, a few exhibitions, notably in Paris (Marmottan Monet Museum in 2004, bringing together 118 of his paintings, watercolors and drawings) and in Marseille (Museum of Fine Arts in 2005), made him better known. His paintings are preserved, among others, in France at the Musée d'Orsay and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Marseille. Route de la Gineste, near Marseille, 1859, oil on canvas, 89 × 117 cm, Paris, Musée d'Orsay. The Washerwoman, 1860, oil on canvas, 81 × 59 cm, Paris, Musée d'Orsay. Landscape of Provence, 1860, oil on canvas, 54 × 81 cm, Paris, Musée d'Orsay Colline de Saint-Loup 1860, oil on wood, 27 × 39 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Carcassonne Les Collines d'Allauch, 1862, oil on canvas, 108 × 199 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille. Washerwoman at the Stream, 1862, oil on canvas, 38 × 56 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille. The Banks of the Durance, 1862, oil on canvas, 21 × 47 cm, Marseille, Regards de Provence museum. The Great Willows, 1864, oil on canvas, Marseille Museum of Fine Arts. The Village of Saint-Paul on the banks of the Durance, 1865, oil on canvas, 65 × 150 cm, Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum. The Pines on the banks of the Durance, 1869, oil on canvas, 23 × 45 cm, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Marseille. The Banks of the Durance at Saint-Paul, 1864, oil on canvas, 62 × 148 cm, Art Institute of Chicago. Durance, 1866, oil on canvas, 66 × 118 cm, Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum The Durance Valley, 1869, oil on wood, Hamburg, Kunsthalle. Road along the Mediterranean, near Marseille, 1866, oil on canvas, 65 × 117 cm, Christie's sale 2004, location unknown. Self-portrait, 1869, oil on wood, 40 × 29.5 cm, Avignon, Calvet museum. Provençal Landscape, 1869, oil on wood, 24 × 40 cm, Montpellier, Fabre Museum Landscape in Martigues, 1869, oil on canvas, 28 × 46 cm, Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum. Landscape of southern France, 1870, oil on panel, 18 × 45 cm, Pasadena, Norton Simon Museum Undocumented dates The path to the hill, oil on canvas, 40 × 47.5 cm, Toulon Art Museum. Edges of the Arc, oil on canvas, 26 × 41 cm, Toulon Art Museum. Hills of Provence, Cannes, Castre museum. Landscape, Athens, National Gallery.