Paul Jouve

Auguste and Paul Jouve

Paul Jouve (born March 16, 1878 in Bourron-Marlotte , † May 13, 1973 in Paris ) was a French painter , draftsman , sculptor and illustrator .

Life

Animal painter in the Jardin des Plantes

Paul Jouve was a son of the painter Auguste Jouve . When he was two years old, the family moved to Paris, where they lived on Boulevard Saint Jacques. Paul Jouve started drawing at an early age and preferred animal motifs. His father supported this tendency and made him work in museums and in the Jardin des Plantes . Paul Jouve spent a year at a school of arts and crafts, then he switched to the École des Beaux-Arts on Rue Bonaparte, but still preferred to paint from nature. He continued to find his models in the Jardin des Plantes, but also at the horse market and in the slaughterhouse as well as in the natural history museum and the veterinary college. He learned to lithograph with Henry Patrice Dillon . Travels to Germany and Holland gave him knowledge of the Flemish etchers.

At the age of 16, Paul Jouve first exhibited works in the salon and caused a sensation with a lion depiction. From then on he began to sell his lithographs and exhibited them every year in the salon.

In 1898 he did his military service. In the 130th Infantry Regiment he met Georges Leroux , with whom he had a long friendship.

For the world exhibition in 1900 he was commissioned by the architect René Binet to design a 100 meter long animal frieze. The work was carried out in sandstone by Alexandre Bigot . Binet also had Jouve design four lions and a rooster to decorate the entrance gates of the exhibition. Bigot sold replicas of the frieze until 1914.

In 1901 Jouve published animal caricatures in l'Assiette au Beurre ; he illustrated the entire November 23rd issue. The collector and art dealer Samuel Bing became aware of Jouve. Samuel Bing and his son Marcel, who founded the L'Art Nouveau gallery , organized an exhibition of Jouve's works in 1902, which was very successful and enabled Jouve to regularly visit zoos in Europe. In 1904 he lived for a while in Hamburg and later in Antwerp , where he met Rembrandt Bugatti , with whom he became friends.

In 1905 he exhibited in Marcel Bing's new gallery on rue Saint Georges. In the same year he was commissioned to illustrate the jungle book ; the edition did not appear until after the First World War . In 1907 he moved into the Villa Abd-el-Tif in Algiers after winning a competition. Through his future father-in-law Maxime Noiré , he got to know parts of Africa. The acquaintance with Etienne Dinet also came from this phase of life.

In 1911 he moved into the former studio of the painter Gérome on rue Notre Dame des Champs in Paris, which he kept until his death.

In 1914 he was drafted into military service and deployed to the front in northern France, but continued to draw at every free moment. After this had been noticed, he was called to his regimental general Quinquandon and deployed with him. On April 22, 1915, Jouve survived the first gas attack. In October of the same year he joined his regiment, which was now stationed in Greece , and thanks to Quinquandon was used for photographic work instead of combat. In the French headquarters he made the acquaintance of Prince Alexander of Serbia , who later became king, and numerous other influential personalities. He spent two months in Athos and visited the Byzantine monasteries; then he organized an exhibition in Athens .

After returning from the war, Jouve, whose jungle book illustrations were very well received, received numerous commissions, including from the Queen of Romania . In 1920 he became a Knight of the Legion of Honor.

In 1921 Jouve divorced his wife Annette, who moved to Algeria with their son Romain. Paul Jouve married Marguerite Jeanne Macqueron that same spring. The first exhibition of the group of four took place in December 1921.

Jouve won a travel grant from the Government of Indochina and in 1922 traveled from Marseille to Indochina, China, Ceylon and India. He spent almost three months in Angkor . The fruits of this journey included the illustrations for Lotti's Un Pelerin d'Angkor .

His second wife had accompanied Jouve on this several-month trip and gave birth to Jouve's second son Hubert after returning from Asia, but the couple divorced the following year. Jouve continued to exhibit very successfully. In Le Tholonet he built an Art Deco house , which he furnished with a bas-relief depicting a sitting black panther . He used this house until the 1950s.

In 1926 he became an officer of the Legion of Honor. He illustrated the fables of La Fontaine and numerous other books. At the beginning of 1931 he embarked on a month-long trip to Africa to get to know the Tuareg country . Among other things, he created illustrations for René Maran's Book of the Bush . Returning from the trip, he exhibited pictures of wild animals and other objects at the International Colonial Exhibition in Paris. He received a gold medal and his elephant with mahout has been reproduced. In 1934 he visited Egypt . His host was Mohamed Helmi Pacha, and his future biographer Charles Terrasse took care of him. He worked in the Cairo Zoo , where special gazelles and antelopes as well as maned tigers and other exotic species could be seen, but also visited Luxor , Karnak and the Valley of the Kings and finally exhibited his works in Cairo.

The Normandy . The ship burned out in World War II.

For the Normandie ocean liner , which went into service in 1935 , Jouve created two paintings that were to adorn the First Class Salon. They depicted tigers and elephants. A year later he was commissioned to create works of art for the Chamber of Deputies in Luxembourg , which were first exhibited in Paris in 1937. At the same time, a work for the Minister of Trade and Industry was shown: a bull's head that can still be seen on the fountain at Trocadéro . This bronze work earned him a new gold medal.

On February 7, 1945 Jouve became a member of the Académie des Beaux Arts . He continued to exhibit his works regularly and created numerous illustrations, for example for a work by Balzac , which was published in 1948, and Maurice Genevoix 's adaptation of works by the Duc de Brissac. He also continued to travel extensively. He exhibited in Morocco , visited the United States, and spent the summer of 1956 in the Bermuda Islands . The fish pictures that are now in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Reims are based on the studies he made on this trip. Jouve remained active until his death and died in his studio at the age of 95.

Works in museums

The National Museum of Wildlife Art houses a Jouves lion figure and an oil painting of a panther.

Web links

• Detailed page about Paul Jouve

literature

• Félix Marcilhac, Pierre-Paul Jouve. Peintre sculpteur animalier , Les Éditions de l'Amateur, 2005, ISBN 2-85917-409-5

Footnotes

1. ↑ http://www.wildlifeart.org/ViewArtwork/index.php?tID=511  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  
2. ↑ http://www.wildlifeart.org/ViewArtwork/index.php?tID=359  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.