Paul Jouve
Paul Jouve - Chimpanzee - Original Engraving
1950

Name: Paul Jouve - Chimpanzee - Original Engraving
Brand: Paul Jouve
Price: 830.72 USD
Availability: InStock

About the Item

Paul Jouve - Chimpanzee - Original Engraving Editions Rombaldi, Paris, 1950. Copy on velin creme de Rives Artwork by Paul Jouve. Original copper engraving heightened with pochoir. Paul Jouve, who is considered as one of the most famous animal painters of the first half of the 20th century, is also an iconic figure of the Art Deco period. Born in 1878 in Malotte, near Fontainebleau, he was taught the basics of drawing and painting by his father, Auguste Jouve, who was himself a landscape painter and a portraitist. The regular exhibitions of Pau Jouve’s works at the Salon des Artistes français from 1894, followed soon by noticed participations at the Universal Exhibition of 1900, the Salon National des Beaux-Arts in 1905 and finally at the Salon des Artistes Orientalistes in 1906, contributed to the artist’s recognition among his pears and critics. From the 1910’s, he was considered as the leading personality of the new animal painting. The diverse prices and scholarships obtained by Jouve during his career, mixed with a strong and natural appetence for travels, were at the origin of numerous expeditions realized by the painter all around the world, in Algeria, Egypt, Turkey, or the USA ; he was also the first pensionary appointed to join the Villa Abd-el-Tif. Those sojourns, real « laboratories », allowed Paul Jouve to face new horizons, exotics ones, with their wild animals which he loved to reproduce on the paper, the canvas or in the bronze. The Far East journey made by the painter in 1922-1923 is particularly representative of his personality : winner of the scholarship offered by the general government of Indochina, he travelled through Cambodia, Vietnam, China and Ceylon, which landscapes and wildlife inspired Jouve for many drawings, engravings and paintings, such as Two Elephants Side Face, Kandy (1923). The very singular and proper style of Jouve appeared since then : a purified and elegant aesthetic leading his compositions with a subtil chromaticism, while his incisive stroke echoes the graphism of Art Deco. His creations proposed a new apprehension of artistic animal representation ; Jouve described with acuity the psychological state of his subjects, paying attention to the attitudes, the expressions, and nearly humanizing them. From the 1920’s, works of the artistic maturity showed a simplified stroke and a general appeasing of the palette, going with a pacification of the attitudes of the animals, different from the previous aggressivity and violence often enhanced by the painter until then. Paul Jouve was invited to collaborate to the decoration of the prestigious ocean liner the Normandie in 1935 and was, at this occasion, commissioned two paintings for the first classes’ lounge, Elephant in Hue and Tigers drinking, soon reproduced and promoted by the lithograph medium in 1937. Paul Jouve knew fame and glory during his life, partially thanks to the vibrant illustrations he made for several books, such as the famous Jungle book by Rudyard Kipling (1919) ; his talent was never denied and his works are today hung up on the picture rails of the greatest French and international museums.

Creator:

Paul Jouve (1880 - 1973, French)

Creation Year:

1950

Dimensions:

Height: 7.49 in (19 cm)Width: 5.52 in (14 cm)Depth: 0.04 in (1 mm)

Medium:

Engraving

Movement & Style:

Modern

Period:

1950-1959

Condition:

Gallery Location:

Collonge Bellerive, Geneve, CH

Reference Number:

1stDibs: LU16122403853

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Paul Jouve

In the time when the School of Fine Arts and official or special academies promote the study of human model, Paul Jouve, influenced by his father, prominent landscape painter and portraitist, shows more interest in study of animal models. Since his childhood, his father took him to Paris museums and botanic gardens and to Jardin d’Acclimatation - he will keep coming back to them during his entire career - At the age of 16, simultaneously with his art studies Paul Jouve learns the art of gravure and the lithography at Henri Patrice Dillon He was then noticed by Renée Binet, the architect in charge for the construction of many buildings at Universal Exhibition in 1900, who for this occasion order from Jouve to make two groups of lions and to decorate the monumental gateway of one significant frieze in sandstone made by Alexandre Bigot. The support of the Gallery Bing where he exhibited his work in 1905 enables him to finance his travels to Europe and Algeria. Numerous journeys he undertook during his life thanks to awarded scholarships -Algeria, Equatorial, Africa or Far-East- or historical events, like those in Greece during the WWI, enabled him to record new terminology and numerous graphic and animaliers repertoires that his talent of drawer, illustrator, engraver and sculptor fantastically depicts. Paul Jouve exhibits in 1911 in the Gallery of Modern Artists, over one hundred thirty drawings and four sculptures. The press is unanimous and acknowledges the contained force and the architecture of his figures, constancy of his models and his precise meaning of forms ; Jouve’s eye sees beyond visible and catches what is sudden, fugitive, and sometimes silent ; the animal comes out from the lines of the drawing, he liked to say. The press, the critique and the collectors are also unanimous when in 1921 the Group of Four was created, gathering talents like Paul Jouve, Jean Goulden and François-Louis Schmied under the leadership of Jean Dunand. Every year until 1933, the group exhibited in the Gallery Georges Petit, different pieces like furniture, works of art, paintings, book covers and enamels. Simultaneously, Paul Jouve, now leader of the animaliers, exhibits with them regularly in the gallery Brandt. In 1929 it was renamed Gallery Malesherbes and later around 1933, it was taken over by Edouard-Marcel Sandoz. After the war the group exhibited in the gallery Art vivant and finally, from 1948 to 1957, in circle Volney, also purchased by Sandoz. Jouve’s career is marked by prestigious orders, such as Ocean liner Normandie in 1935, and the literary work he will illustrate during his career, such as Jungle book by Kypling in 1919. In years after the WWII some beautiful retrospectives of his work took place. All his life he dedicated his multiple talent to animal, drawn and statuary character of his work, without ever betraying or leaving his virtuosity. Being a great traveler, from Bedouin tents to Angkor, he gave to his work an incomparable and unique diversity made of light, architecture, expressions and imagination.