Marc Gabriel Charles Gleyre (Orphaned at a young age, he was raised by his uncle in Lyon, France) was a Swiss-born French painter who, while a dedicated classical and academic artist himself, is best remembered as the influential teacher of some of the most famous Impressionist painters in history.

Orphaned at the age of eight, Gleyre was taken to Lyon, France, by his uncle and later moved to Paris to study at the École des Beaux-Arts. In the 1830s, he traveled extensively through Italy, Greece, Egypt, and the Middle East. He served as a visual documentarian for the American industrialist and traveler John Lowell Jr., painting landscapes, ethnographic studies, and ancient ruins. The harsh sun of Egypt severely damaged his eyesight, and a bout of fever nearly killed him, forcing his eventual return to Paris.

In 1843, he exhibited his breakout masterpiece, Le Soir (later widely known as Lost Illusions). The painting—a melancholic, poetic vision of an aging poet watching his youthful dreams sail away on the Nile—was a massive success at the Paris Salon and firmly established his reputation.

That same year, Gleyre took over the prestigious teaching studio of Paul Delaroche. The “Académie Gleyre” became legendary in the Paris art scene. Unlike many masters of the era, Gleyre did not charge his students a tuition fee for his instruction, only requiring them to contribute to the cost of studio rent and live models. Although he strictly taught academic principles, classical forms, and the absolute primacy of drawing, his leniency and open-mindedness attracted a group of rebellious young artists. His students included Claude Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Alfred Sisley, and Frédéric Bazille—who would go on to found the Impressionist movement—as well as the American painter James Abbott McNeill Whistler.

Gleyre died suddenly in 1874 of a ruptured aneurysm while attending a retrospective art exhibition in Paris. He left behind a legacy defined not only by his immaculate, melancholic canvases but by the revolutionary artistic seeds he planted in his pupils.

Active in others filds : Art Education (Head of the Académie Gleyre), Ethnographic and Archaeological Documentation.