Hermann-Paul
Encyclopedia
René Georges Hermann-Paul (December 27, 1864 – June 23, 1940) was a French artist. He was born in Paris
and died in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
.
Recent efforts to catalog the work of Hermann-Paul reveal an artist of considerable scope. He was a well-known illustrator whose work appeared in numerous newspapers and periodicals. His fine art was displayed in gallery exhibitions alongside Vuillard
, Matisse
and Toulouse-Lautrec
. Early works were noted for their satiric characterizations of the foibles of French society. His points were made with simple caricature. His illustrations relied on blotches of pure black with minimum outline to define his animated marionettes. His exhibition pieces were carried by large splashes of color and those same fine lines of black. Hermann-Paul worked in Ripolin enamel paint
, watercolors
, woodcut
s, lithographs, drypoint engraving
, oils
, and ink.
On the eve of the First World War, he made quite an impression as part of M. Druet's "First Group." As noted by the Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, the exhibition was "chiefly remarkable for a series of paintings or drawings - it is hard to say which - by M. Hermann-Paul in a new medium which is simply ripolin." The Great War soon intervened and Hermann-Paul would document its tragedy as well as its foibles. After the war, he underwent several stylistic changes. In his later years, he produced many works in dry point and ink depicting his beloved Camargue
.
Between 1890 and 1914 he worked as a lithographer (both in color and in black and white) and as an illustrator for weekly publications such as La Faridondaine, Le Courier Français, Le Cri de Paris, Le Figaro
, Le Petit Bleu, Gil-Blas and Le Rire
. Despite great elegance and beauty, his work was imbued with social criticism from the start. Although the bourgeoisie received the brunt of his mockery, Hermann-Paul prodded all aspects of Parisian society. He was critical of rich and poor alike. He attacked monarchs, paupers, politicians, clerics and elements of the established order. Peripheral players in the art world received particular attention.
As early as 1895 his famous Vie de Monsieur Quelconque and Vie de Madame Quelconque poked holes in the established understanding of the typical aspirations of the middle class in matters both public and private. By 1900 most Parisians familiar with the local news weeklies were aware of the artist's work. He was a staunch defender of Captain Alfred Dreyfus
, whom he considered an innocent man. The artist's suspicions were substantiated after one of Dreyfus's accusers broke down under interrogation. Hubert-Joseph Henry
confessed that the damning documents were actually forged. After Henry slit his throat in prison, Hermann-Paul produced a cartoon in which two people stand over the fresh grave of Major Henry. One says to the other, "This one, at least, won't give us any trouble." Avec celui-là au moins on est tranquille.
During this time, Hermann-Paul produced work in the "intimiste" style which often depicted bourgeois settings populated by women sipping tea or quietly sewing. The term was coined – derisively, it seems – by Édouard Vuillard
who used it to describe his own style. Other practitioners include Maurice Lobre
, Hughes de Beaumont
, Henri Matisse
, Rene Prinet and Ernest Laurent
. The Intimists first collective exhibition was shown at Henry Grave's galleries in 1905. The exhibition included several works by Hermann-Paul.
in a gallant pose as his men go over the top behind him. Glory awaits the general who stands safely behind the conflict while the violent reality of war greets the soldiers who obey his orders. In July 1915, Hermann-Paul depicts a couple in love as they bask in the sun of a beautiful summer day. The war intrudes. He is wounded and walks with a cane. Many such illustrations were published in La Victoire and La Guerre Sociale. Hermann-Paul created his first woodcuts during this period. They are in color and black and white. The medium helped accentuate the sparse style and simplified forms that characterized his illustrations. After the war, he published a morbid series of woodcuts in book form, The Dance With Death La danse macabre; vingt gravures sur bois. The series depicts death's passage through the modern world. Men are depicted as isolated and lonely creatures. The meaning of individual works is not always clear but the series is a firm indictment of modern mechanized warfare.
After the war, woodcuts, both used as fine arts prints and as illustrations for books become his media of predilection. Despite a large number of reproductive illustrations for Candide, Hermann-Paul became mostly a fine artist after 1920. His inspirations become more literary than journalistic and his style evolved from a belle époque line to a modernist simplification. It is unjust to just list a few publications, as so many of Hermann-Paul's woodcut illustrations from the 1920s and 30s deserve praise, however one should particularly mention La Génèse (Léon Pichon, Paris – France, 1921), Oeuvres de François Villon (Léon Pichon, Paris – France, 1922), Douze Dessins pour l’Amour de Goya (Editions du Balancier, Liege – Belgium, 1932), and Don Quichotte (Editions du Balancier, Liege – Belgium, 1932).
Hermann-Paul practiced some painting on canvas, but is certainly not remembered for it. First and foremost his contribution to the art world resides in his daring composition of the 1890s and 1920s in lithography and in woodcut respectively. His many book illustrations, both reproductive and original also deserve much praise, as does his immense production of journalistic satire in the 1890s through the end of the 1910s. The unique works of art that should be remembered are beautiful works on paper: pastels, color drawings, watercolors and preparatory pencil sketches for his publications.
. Many drawings and prints currently on the market bear the stamp of this sale on the verso.
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
and died in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer
Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer is the capital of the Camargue in the south of France. It is a commune in the Bouches-du-Rhône department by the Mediterranean Sea. Population: 2,478...
.
Recent efforts to catalog the work of Hermann-Paul reveal an artist of considerable scope. He was a well-known illustrator whose work appeared in numerous newspapers and periodicals. His fine art was displayed in gallery exhibitions alongside Vuillard
Édouard Vuillard
Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...
, Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
and Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec
Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa or simply Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French painter, printmaker, draughtsman, and illustrator, whose immersion in the colourful and theatrical life of fin de siècle Paris yielded an œuvre of exciting, elegant and provocative images of the modern...
. Early works were noted for their satiric characterizations of the foibles of French society. His points were made with simple caricature. His illustrations relied on blotches of pure black with minimum outline to define his animated marionettes. His exhibition pieces were carried by large splashes of color and those same fine lines of black. Hermann-Paul worked in Ripolin enamel paint
Enamel paint
Enamel paint is paint that air dries to a hard, usually glossy, finish, used for coating surfaces that are outdoors or otherwise subject to hard wear or variations in temperature; it should not be confused with decorated objects in "painted enamel", where vitreous enamel is applied with brushes and...
, watercolors
Watercolor painting
Watercolor or watercolour , also aquarelle from French, is a painting method. A watercolor is the medium or the resulting artwork in which the paints are made of pigments suspended in a water-soluble vehicle...
, woodcut
Woodcut
Woodcut—occasionally known as xylography—is a relief printing artistic technique in printmaking in which an image is carved into the surface of a block of wood, with the printing parts remaining level with the surface while the non-printing parts are removed, typically with gouges...
s, lithographs, drypoint engraving
Drypoint
Drypoint is a printmaking technique of the intaglio family, in which an image is incised into a plate with a hard-pointed "needle" of sharp metal or diamond point. Traditionally the plate was copper, but now acetate, zinc, or plexiglas are also commonly used...
, oils
Oil paint
Oil paint is a type of slow-drying paint that consists of particles of pigment suspended in a drying oil, commonly linseed oil. The viscosity of the paint may be modified by the addition of a solvent such as turpentine or white spirit, and varnish may be added to increase the glossiness of the...
, and ink.
On the eve of the First World War, he made quite an impression as part of M. Druet's "First Group." As noted by the Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs, the exhibition was "chiefly remarkable for a series of paintings or drawings - it is hard to say which - by M. Hermann-Paul in a new medium which is simply ripolin." The Great War soon intervened and Hermann-Paul would document its tragedy as well as its foibles. After the war, he underwent several stylistic changes. In his later years, he produced many works in dry point and ink depicting his beloved Camargue
Camargue
The Camargue is the region located south of Arles, France, between the Mediterranean Sea and the two arms of the Rhône River delta. The eastern arm is called the Grand Rhône; the western one is the Petit Rhône....
.
Early work
Le Figaro
Le Figaro is a French daily newspaper founded in 1826 and published in Paris. It is one of three French newspapers of record, with Le Monde and Libération, and is the oldest newspaper in France. It is also the second-largest national newspaper in France after Le Parisien and before Le Monde, but...
, Le Petit Bleu, Gil-Blas and Le Rire
Le Rire
Le Rire, or "Laughter," was a successful humor magazine published from October 1894 through the 1950s. Founded in Paris during the Belle Époque by Felix Juven, Le Rire appeared as typical Parisians began to achieve more education, income and leisure time. Interest in the arts, culture and politics...
. Despite great elegance and beauty, his work was imbued with social criticism from the start. Although the bourgeoisie received the brunt of his mockery, Hermann-Paul prodded all aspects of Parisian society. He was critical of rich and poor alike. He attacked monarchs, paupers, politicians, clerics and elements of the established order. Peripheral players in the art world received particular attention.
As early as 1895 his famous Vie de Monsieur Quelconque and Vie de Madame Quelconque poked holes in the established understanding of the typical aspirations of the middle class in matters both public and private. By 1900 most Parisians familiar with the local news weeklies were aware of the artist's work. He was a staunch defender of Captain Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus
Alfred Dreyfus was a French artillery officer of Jewish background whose trial and conviction in 1894 on charges of treason became one of the most tense political dramas in modern French and European history...
, whom he considered an innocent man. The artist's suspicions were substantiated after one of Dreyfus's accusers broke down under interrogation. Hubert-Joseph Henry
Hubert-Joseph Henry
Hubert-Joseph Henry , French Lieutenant-Colonel in 1897 involved in the Dreyfus affair. Arrested for having forged evidence against Alfred Dreyfus, he was found dead in his prison cell...
confessed that the damning documents were actually forged. After Henry slit his throat in prison, Hermann-Paul produced a cartoon in which two people stand over the fresh grave of Major Henry. One says to the other, "This one, at least, won't give us any trouble." Avec celui-là au moins on est tranquille.
During this time, Hermann-Paul produced work in the "intimiste" style which often depicted bourgeois settings populated by women sipping tea or quietly sewing. The term was coined – derisively, it seems – by Édouard Vuillard
Édouard Vuillard
Jean-Édouard Vuillard was a French painter and printmaker associated with the Nabis.-Early years and education:...
who used it to describe his own style. Other practitioners include Maurice Lobre
Maurice Lobre
Maurice Lobre was a French artist. He was born in Bordeaux and died in Paris.Lobre first gained recognition in the late 19th Century when his work was displayed at the Salon du Champ de Mars. In 1888 he received an honorary mention and a travel grant from the Salon. That summer he traveled to...
, Hughes de Beaumont
Hughes de Beaumont
Beaumont, Hughes de was a French artist who produced work in the "intimiste" style which often depicted bourgeois settings. The term was coined - derisively, it seems - by Edouard Vuillard who used it to describe his own style. Other practitioners include Maurice Lobre, René Georges Hermann-Paul,...
, Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse
Henri Matisse was a French artist, known for his use of colour and his fluid and original draughtsmanship. He was a draughtsman, printmaker, and sculptor, but is known primarily as a painter...
, Rene Prinet and Ernest Laurent
Ernest Laurent
Ernest Joseph Laurent was a French painter and printmaker. He was born in Gentilly and died in Bièvre....
. The Intimists first collective exhibition was shown at Henry Grave's galleries in 1905. The exhibition included several works by Hermann-Paul.
The Great War
From the onset of the First World War until its conclusion in 1918, Hermann-Paul depicts the conflict and its atrocities. Early pieces display German crimes of rape and pillage that were not out of line with charges raised by the Belgians during the invasion and subsequent occupation of that country. His later work begins to undermine notions of patriotism and pacifism. Hermann-Paul depicts Gen. Joseph JoffreJoseph Joffre
Joseph Jacques Césaire Joffre OM was a French general during World War I. He is most known for regrouping the retreating allied armies to defeat the Germans at the strategically decisive First Battle of the Marne in 1914. His popularity led to his nickname Papa Joffre.-Biography:Joffre was born in...
in a gallant pose as his men go over the top behind him. Glory awaits the general who stands safely behind the conflict while the violent reality of war greets the soldiers who obey his orders. In July 1915, Hermann-Paul depicts a couple in love as they bask in the sun of a beautiful summer day. The war intrudes. He is wounded and walks with a cane. Many such illustrations were published in La Victoire and La Guerre Sociale. Hermann-Paul created his first woodcuts during this period. They are in color and black and white. The medium helped accentuate the sparse style and simplified forms that characterized his illustrations. After the war, he published a morbid series of woodcuts in book form, The Dance With Death La danse macabre; vingt gravures sur bois. The series depicts death's passage through the modern world. Men are depicted as isolated and lonely creatures. The meaning of individual works is not always clear but the series is a firm indictment of modern mechanized warfare.
Post-war
Hermann-Paul practiced some painting on canvas, but is certainly not remembered for it. First and foremost his contribution to the art world resides in his daring composition of the 1890s and 1920s in lithography and in woodcut respectively. His many book illustrations, both reproductive and original also deserve much praise, as does his immense production of journalistic satire in the 1890s through the end of the 1910s. The unique works of art that should be remembered are beautiful works on paper: pastels, color drawings, watercolors and preparatory pencil sketches for his publications.
Rediscovered
During the 1980s, the Zimmerli Museum at Rutgers acquired no fewer than 150 pieces by the artist. They demonstrate a range of expression for which few collectors had previously given him credit. Interest has recently surged since Hermann-Paul’s work was rediscovered by a larger public through the auction of his earlier pieces in October 2000 in ChartresChartres
Chartres is a commune and capital of the Eure-et-Loir department in northern France. It is located southwest of Paris.-Geography:Chartres is built on the left bank of the Eure River, on a hill crowned by its famous cathedral, the spires of which are a landmark in the surrounding country...
. Many drawings and prints currently on the market bear the stamp of this sale on the verso.
External links
- Hermann-Paul - Online biography and illustrated gallery
- Les Amis de Job - Illustrations from Le Rire, l'Assiette au Beurre, Charivari...
- L'Assiette au Beurre - Illustrations from L'Assiette au Beurre
- Le Rire - Illustrations from Le Rire
- Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco Image search for Hermann-Paul