Marie Anatole Gaston Roullet (France, 1847-1925)

Born November 15, 1847, in Ars-en-Ré and died December 2, 1925, in Paris, was a French painter and illustrator, appointed official painter of the Colonies and the Navy in 1885.

He was the father of playwright and theatre and film director Jacques Roullet (1878-1946) and the uncle of watercolorist and painter Marie-Thérèse Dethan-Roullet (1870-1945).

Son of Marie Zélie Boullineau and Auguste Roullet, a court clerk, Marie Anatole Gaston Roullet was a pupil of Jules Noël, whose daughter Marie-Caroline he married in 1874. That same year, he made his debut at the Salon, exhibiting landscapes and seascapes. Eventually, he fell out with Jules Noël, who wanted to forbid him from frequenting amusement arcades.

Appointed painter to the French Navy and the Colonial Departments, Roullet took part in the Tonkin military campaigns in 1885 and 1886, with an artistic mission given to him by the State to produce drawings; he then left for Tunisia (1889-1890), New Caledonia (1889), Senegal and Sudan (1891).

He became a correspondent for Le Monde Illustré, for which he painted scenes of Africa, Oceania, Indochina and Canada, as well as numerous sites along the coasts of Brittany and Normandy.

In February 1895, he held a personal exhibition at the Salon des Cent, and in the same year was named Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur by the Ministry of Colonies.

Gaston Roullet is a member of the Société des artistes français and the Société d'aquarellistes français. He was awarded a silver medal at the 1889 Universal Exhibition and at the Lyon Exhibition in 1894.

He died on December 2, 1925, at his home in the 16th arrondissement of Paris, and is buried in the Montmartre cemetery (28th division).