Lucien Coutaud Drawings and Watercolor Paintings

"Abstract Figures" Hand signed and dated 1950 Lower Right. Measures: site, 9" x 7", framed, 16-1/2" x 14-3/4". Lucien Coutaud (French Surrealist artist, 1904-1977) Known for etchings, engravings and printmaking and for theater, ballet and opera set decoration as well as for his superb tapestries produced for Marie Cuttoli and with Jacques Adnet at the Aubusson tapestry atelier Pinton workshop for the Compagnie des Arts Français. Lucien Coutaud was born in a small town in the Gard, between Nîmes and Beaucaire. His father Adrien Antoine Coutaud was a watchmaker and jeweler in Nîmes. His mother Françoise Célestine Priad is from an old Mynoise family. He spent his childhood and adolescence in Nîmes, apart from a short stay in Marseille in 1917. In 1920 he enrolled in the School of Fine Arts of Nîmes where he studied with Armand Coussens. In October 1924, at the age of twenty, Coutaud moved to Paris. He attended the art academies of Montparnasse. He is accepted to the School of Decorative Arts. In 1926, on the advice of André Salmon, he met Charles Dullin who asked him to make the sets and costumes for the Birds, the play by Aristophane, adapted by Bernard Zimmer. In April 1928, he returned to Paris and, in 1929, painted his first important paintings: The Bicycle, Woman and Soldier, Soldiers arresting a spy and Young Girl with three wheels. Rose Adler takes an interest in his work. There he meets Max Ernst, Paul Klee and eventually becoming part of the artistic circles, making friends with key figures of the Parisian cultural scene like Pablo Picasso, Jean Paul Sartre, Jacques Prévert, Paul Eluard, Boris Vian, and others. He is mostly known for Surrealism and erotic symbolism. He was included in the show Surrealism and its Affinities along with Leonor Fini, Giorgio de Chirico, Salvador Dali, Max Ernst and Roberto Matta, Andre Breton, Roberto Matta In 1930, he made his first engravings with drypoint on zinc. He enters into a relationship with the writer Jean Blanzat. In 1931, the Quatre Chemins gallery in Paris organized his first private exhibition for him. He befriended Jean-Louis Barrault who made his stage debut at the Théâtre de l'Atelier. In 1932, he works almost exclusively in gouache, painting numerous bouquets of flowers and large esoteric compositions. Sets and costumes for Le Château des Papes by André de Richaud directed by Charles Dullin at the Théâtre de l'Atelier. Sets for Venus and Adonis by André Obey directed by Michel Saint-Denis and represented by the Compagnie des Quinze. He is interested in the activities of the surrealist group, reads Breton, Soupault and Aragon but maintains his independence. He meets Henri Matisse and Pablo Picasso in Antibes...