Marcel Vertès Portrait Drawings and Watercolors

Marcel Vertès (1895-1961) A Music hall artist, signed lower right and dedicated "à monsieur Pierre Guastalla bien sympathiquement son confrère Vertès" lower left Pencil on paper 20.8 x 13.8 cm framed : 30.5 x 24.5 cm This little drawing is very characteristic of the lively style of Marcel Vertès, but also of his inspiration. You can see the artist's nervous line, immediately evocative of the figure he is portraying. This is clearly an artist preparing for a performance, and there is obviously an ambiguity in this androgynous figure, even though it is recognisable as a man. Vertès's pencilwork serves this subject admirably. He was particularly inspired by the world of shows and music halls, which he dealt with throughout his career. The drawing is dedicated to another artist, Pierre Guastalla (1891-1968), whose world was different but whose affinities with Marcel Vertès are obvious, since he also devoted a great deal of time to engraving between the wars. Emmanuel Marcel Vertès, born Vértes Marcell in Újpest (Hungary) on 10 August 1895 and died in Paris 16th arrondissement on 31 October 1961, was a Hungarian-born French painter, engraver, illustrator and costume and film designer. After studying with Ferenczy at the Beaux-Arts in Budapest, Marcel Vertès produced political posters during the First World War. Going into exile at the end of the hostilities, like his comrades Mihály Bíró and Róbert Berény, he studied at the Académie Julian in Paris. He made a name for himself in France in the mid-1920s, particularly for his lithographs and illustrations. He published L'heure exquise, a series of erotic engravings...