Paul Barruel

Paul Louis Ernest Adrien Barruel (born February 15, 1901 in Paris , † March 2, 1982 in Chambéry ) was a French animal painter and sculptor .

Life

Paul Barruel made the Paris school after graduating from Lycée Buffon and the Lycée Saint-Louis in 1918 his Abitur . The following year he was admitted to the École centrale des arts et manufactures in Paris. He specialized in civil engineering and graduated in 1922.

After his military service from May 1922 to November 1923, he joined the Société des transports en commun de la région parisienne (renamed RATP in 1948 ) as a technical assistant in March 1924 . In this position he took part in the construction of the Montmartre funicular railway.

Barruel became interested in nature from an early age, both in Paris and during his travels. His engineering education, which included a substantial amount of drawing and technical drawing courses, had encouraged his fondness for shapes and structures. In the 1920s he started carving animals in wood. He exhibited some of his works for the first time in 1928 at the Salon des indépendants in Paris, as well as several times at the Salon des animauxiers .

Observing nature soon turned into a passion and in the 1930s Barruel filled notebooks with sketches of animals and plants that he had observed on his excursions. In 1934 he published his first ornithological note. Since then, he and his wife have made extensive natural history trips, to Morocco and Spain in 1936, to Brittany and Algeria in 1937 and to the Camargue in 1940 . During this time he became interested in the watercolor technique, which he quickly mastered and to which he remained loyal throughout his life, with the exception of a few gouache and pastel paintings .

After giving up his engineering profession on December 1, 1941, he decided in the winter of 1942 to present his work in the Muséum national d'histoire naturelle . Barruel met Jacques Berlioz , the then deputy director of the Laboratory for Mammals and Birds and himself a watercolorist, and Robert Daniel Etchécopar , who admired his talent and was his friend and supporter for forty years. In 1942 Barruel published his first watercolor panel in an article signed by him about his observations of 1938 and 1939 at Cap Sizun in Brittany.

In 1949 Barruel's first book Les Oiseaux dans la nature appeared and in 1953 the work Vie et mœurs des oiseaux , for which he made 16 color plates and 80 monochrome plates.

Barruel gained international fame in 1954 when the Swiss ornithologist Paul Géroudet encouraged him to exhibit some of his watercolors at the 11th International Ornithological Congress in Basel . In 1958 he illustrated the four volumes of the work Les Oiseaux nicheurs d'Europe by Géroudet. In 1964 he produced 24 color plates for the work Les Oiseaux du Nord de l'Afrique de la mer Rouge aux Canaries by François Hüe and Robert Daniel Etchecopar. In 1968 he contributed 40 color plates with illustrations of 537 species to the work The Birds of Surinam by François Haverschmidt . In 1973 he illustrated the work Faune de Madagascar. XXXV: Oiseaux by Philippe Milon , Jean-Jacques Petter and Georges Randrianasolo with 17 color plates.

Illustrated works (selection)

• Paul Barruel: Les Oiseaux dans la nature. Payot, Paris 1949.
• Paul Barruel: Vie et mœurs des oiseaux. Horizons de France, 1953. (German: The great book of birds , translated by Heinrich Frieling, Kosmos, 1954)
• Henri Gaussen (Author), Paul Barruel (Illustrator): Montagnes. La vie aux hautes altitudes. Horizons de France, 1955.
• Paul Géroudet: La Vie des oiseaux , 7 volumes. Delachaux et Niestlé, 1957. (Contains drawings by Paul Barruel)
• Paul Géroudet (author) and Paul Barruel (illustrator): Les Oiseaux nicheurs d'Europe , four volumes. Silva-Verlag, Zurich 1958.
• Marcel Legendre (Author), Paul Barruel (Illustrator): Perroquets et Perruches. N. Boubée et Cie, Paris, 1962.
• François Hüe (Author), Robert Daniel Etchecopar (Author), Paul Barruel (Illustrator): Les Oiseaux du Nord de l'Afrique de la mer Rouge aux Canaries. N. Boubée, Paris 1964.
• Jean Dorst : Avant que Nature meure. Delachaux et Niestlé, 1965. (German: Nature in Danger , translated by Vinzenz Ziswiler . Orell Füssli, Zurich 1966.) (24 drawings by Paul Barruel)
• Pierre Dumas and Collectif d'Auteurs: Le Parc National de la Vanoise. Les imprimeries réunies de Chambéry, 1967. (Contains drawings by Paul Barruel)
• Frédéric-Henri Van den Brink, Paul Barruel: Zoogdierengids voor alle in ons land en overig Europa voorkomende zoogdiersoorten. Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1968
• Bernhard Grzimek (ed.): Grzimeks animal life . Verlag Helmut Kindler, Zurich 1968–1970. (Includes illustrations by Paul Barruel)
• Simon Noël (Author), Paul Géroudet (Author): Survivants. SOS pour 48 animaux. Edita, Lausanne 1970. (Illustrations by Helmut Diller and Paul Barruel)
• Dieter Burckhardt (Author), Paul Barruel (Illustrator): Mammals of Europe. 2 volumes. Silva-Verlag, Zurich 1970.
• François Hüe, Robert Daniel Etchecopar (authors), Paul Barruel (illustrator): Les oiseaux du proche et du Moyen-Orient de la Méditerranée aux contreforts de l'Himalaya. N. Boubée, Paris 1970.
• Frédéric-Henri Van den Brink: Guide des mammifères sauvages de l'Europe occidentale. Delachaux et Niestlé, 1971. (Contains 20 illustrations by Paul Barruel)
• Bernard Fischesser: Richesses de la Nature en France. Réserves et Parcs Naturels. Coll. L'Univers naturel . Horizons de France, Paris 1973. (Includes illustrations by Paul Barruel)
• François Hüe, Robert Daniel Etchecopar: Les Oiseaux de Chine, de Mongolie et de Corée. 2 volumes. Ed. Pacifique, Papeete 1978, ISBN 978-2-850-04037-5 . (Illustrations by Paul Barruel and Francis Bérille)
• Stanley Cramp (Ed.): Handbook of the Birds of Europe the Middle East and North Africa: The Birds of the Western Paleartic. Volume 1. Ostrich to Ducks. Oxford University Press, Oxford 1978. (Includes illustrations by Paul Barruel)
• Helmut Sick : Birds in Brazil: A Natural History. 1993. (Illustrations by John Patton O'Neill and Paul Barruel (posthumous))

literature

• Christine E. Jackson : Dictionary of Bird Artists of the World. Antique Collectors Club, 1999, ISBN 978-1-85149-203-9 , p. 149.