Description

Edouard Chimot 1951 Original Etching ‘Les Soupers de Daphné’

Authentic 1951 etching by Edouard Chimot

This colored etching (out of 15 pcs) was inserted in the book by MEUSNIER de QUERLON Anne-Gabriel : ‘Les Soupers de Daphné suivis des Dortoirs de Lacédémone ou Dialogue sur la Volupté’ – pages 63 & 64

Artwork is signed in the plate

Limited edition of 429 numbered copies on large Rives vellum.

First illustrated edition published in Paris, Éditions d’Art Éryx – 1951

Format in-4° : 28 x 23 cm

Artwork is in mint condition

Info on Edouard Chimot

Édouard Chimot (26 November 1880 – 7 June 1959) was a French artist, illustrator and editor whose career reached its peak in the 1920s in Paris, through the publication of fine quality art-printed books. As artist his own work occupies a characteristic place, but as editor also his ôle was extremely important in bringing together some of the outstanding talents of that distinctive period in French art and providing the commissions upon which the development of their work in a formal context occurred.

In the years before the War Chimot had an atelier in Montmartre, haunted by “jeunes et jolies femmes” who served as his models. His first exhibition of drawings, etchings, and monotypes was in 1912; this was a success, and earned him a commission to illustrate René Baudu’s text Les Après-midi de Montmartre with etchings of what André Warnod termed his “petites filles perdues” (little lost girls). Then came the long interruption of the First World War, during which Chimot was mobilized for nearly five years.

After the war, Chimot rented Renoir’s studio in the Boulevard de Rochechouart. He already had the etchings for Les Après-midi de Montmartre. These were published in 1919, followed by La Montée aux enfers and Les Soirs d’opium by Maurice Magre, Le Fou by Aurele Partorni, L’Enfer by Henri Barbusse, La Petite Jeanne pâle by Jean de Tinan, and Mouki le Delaisse by André Cuel, all illustrated with original etchings between 1920 and 1922.

Chimot’s career got a breakthtrough when he became artistic director of Les Éditions d’Art Devambez. Between 1923 and 1931, from his atelier in the rue Ampère, he oversaw the production of a wonderful array of books illustrated by such artists as Pierre Brissaud, Edgar Chahine, Alméry Lobel-Riche, and Tsuguharu Foujita. He reserved some choice texts for himself, including Les Chansons de Bilitis by Pierre Louÿs (1925), Les Belles de nuit by Magre (1927), and Parallèlement by Paul Verlaine (1931).

Chimot’s work in the last three decades of his life shows a decline in activity and achievement, though inevitably in an artist so richly talented there are flashes of grace and brilliance. In the last year of his life appeared a collection of 16 drawings of female nudes, Les Belles que voilà : mes modèles de Montmartre à Séville, which he regarded as a summary of his lifelong devotion to the female nude. In the 1926 issue of L’Ami du Lettré (quoted by J.-L. Bernard: III), Chimot wrote, “J’ai choisi la femme comme sujet préféré, puis unique de mon oeuvre. Je recherché un modèle au corps élegant et mince avec le côté moderne, un peu androgyne. Je fais beaucoup de dessins dans l’ambiance du texte, puis je choisis parmi eux. La gravure devient une traduction libre de mon dessin. Il me faut de deux à quatre semaines pour une gravure. Je ne fais que de l’eau-forte.”

Chimot died in Paris in 1959.