Richard-Viktor Sainsily-Cayol (b. Dugazon Abymes, Guadeloupe 1959), Tribute to Guillaume Lethière, 2008. Steel, 177 1/8 x 118 1/8 in. (450 x 300 cm). Sainte-Anne, Regional Council/Guadeloupe

Despite Lethière’s prominence during his lifetime, by the twentieth century he had fallen out of many art historical accounts and into relative obscurity in mainland France. In Guadeloupe, however, he has been steadily championed. Today in Sainte-Anne, the city in which he was born, there is a street named after him. In the center of a heavily trafficked roundabout in the neighborhood of Ffrench, where the Guillon family plantation once stood, a monumental sculpture by the contemporary artist Richard-Viktor Sainsily-Cayol features Lethière’s likeness. The sculpture was inspired by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres’s portrait drawing made during Lethière’s directorship in Rome, on view in the exhibition. Reflecting on Lethiere’s place in history, Sainsily-Cayol has written: 

How can we explain his eclipse of almost two centuries in the most common publications in French history, literature and scholarly works? An eclipse which still lasts. The extreme poverty of references to this painter should surprise, given the prestigious nature of his career…Lethière was one of those ‘men of color’ who, for a time, emerged from the fray to serve the Nation they thought was theirs. In this respect, keeping him out of the ‘history’ that he himself contributed to writing through his work seems surreal to me.