Gabriel Chanteau (1874 - 1955)

Gabriel is inseparable from his twin brother Alphonse. Born in Nantes on 13 May 1874, Alphonse and Gabriel Chanteau were always attracted to drawing. After classical studies, they entered the Bernard Palissy School in Paris at the age of 16, then the École des Beaux-Arts. Their progress was meteoric and their talents undisputed. The proof: in 1898, the State bought a copy of "The Infanta Margarita" by Velázquez made by Alphonse Chanteau and, in 1900, the two brothers, always very close, decorated a class at the Universal Exhibition together under the direction of Jules Chéret.

In 1906, the twins made headlines with a memorable wedding. Twins who married twins, with twins as witnesses to their union...

The two artists held numerous exhibitions, went to Italy to study the Renaissance masters and then headed for the United States. They participated in the illustration of several magazines and, as news cartoonists, in the "New York World" newspaper. Appointed by ministerial decree as "Painters attached to the Department of the Navy" in 1910, the twins worked on the "Courrier Français" and then on "Pearson's Magazine" in England. Separated by the war, they moved away (geographically only) once it was over.

Alphonse kept the Parisian studio before settling in Morgat, facing the beach, in a villa called "La muse marine". This was in the 1930s. Gabriel, on the other hand, left to settle in the South of France... but regularly came back to Morgat to spend his holidays. Artistic director of the Faïencerie de Quimper HB, Alphonse received a medal at the colonial exhibition in Paris in 1931. His pencil stroke has largely acquired its letters of nobility. But Alphonse is a multi-faceted artist and does not stop there: engraving, etching, pyrography, ceramics... he enriches his experience with people such as Nicolas Quillivic or Mathurin Méheut. In the region, many hotels call upon him. But of all the hotel decorations he made, only the panels of the dining room of the Hôtel Moderne in Crozon remain today.