Adventures in the Print Trade: January 2014

It’s a while since I posted about the master of the Art Deco nude, Édouard Chimot. Of course if Chimot were simply a depictor of the nude, there wouldn’t be much to say about him—boudoir pictures are boudoir pictures, and that’s it. But Chimot is a much more complex artist than that—one in whom the twin themes of Eros and Thanatos, Love and Death, are inextricably intertwined.

Édouard Chimot, Le café-concert maudit

Colour etching with aquatint for La montée aux enfers, 1920

Of course Love sells better than Death, so sensuous nudes inevitably predominate in Édouard Chimot’s work. But his obsession with prostitutes, drug addicts, and good girls gone bad, means that the spectre of death and destitution hovers behind and around Chimot’s nudes, turning them from decorative erotica into perverse memento mori. They are women “soumises à leurs passions mortelles et délicieuses”, as the critic André Warnod put it.

Édouard Chimot, La Mort

Etching with aquatint for L'enfer, 1921

In my previous post, The fast rise and long slow fall of Édouard Chimot, I mentioned that Chimot had apparently been commissioned in 1903 as architect of the Villa Lysis in Capri, for the dissolute Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen. It seems from the current Wikipedia entry on the Villa Lysis that this is not quite the case, based on a study of Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen’s correspondence with Chimot; Chimot’s role was more likely that of interior decorator. In a comment on my earlier post, Martin Stone notes that “he was also the art director of Fersen's review Akedemos (1909-1910).” The inscription above the door of the Villa Lysis, AMORI ET DOLORI SACRUM, certainly shows that Édouard Chimont and Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen were kindred spirits, for the same words could also be inscribed above Chimot’s work: A Shrine to Love and Sorrow.

Édouard Chimot, L'enfer

Etching with aquatint for L'enfer, 1921

When speaking of the art of Édouard Chimot in the context of this post, I am speaking only of the work created before the Wall Street Crash. Anything published after 1931 (allowing for projects already in the pipeline to emerge) is the work of a lesser, lighter artist. The intensity and complexity of Chimot’s work in the 1920s is completely missing.

Édouard Chimot, Ce sont les autres qui meurent

Etching with aquatint for L'enfer, 1921

All the images in this post are etchings with aquatint published between 1919 and 1922, the years when Chimot exploded onto the Paris art scene. These established him as a central figure in the world of printmaking and fine press publishing. He was the artistic director of the publications of both La Roseraie (the atelier and publishing house of Roger Lacourière) and of Les Éditions d’Art Devambez. In the latter role, especially, Chimot was crucial to the artistic development of many important artists of the twenties.

Édouard Chimot, Les Après-Midi de Montmartre

Etching with aquatint for Les Après-Midi de Montmartre, 1919

Édouard Chimot, Le rouge et le noir

Etching with aquatint for Les Après-Midi de Montmartre, 1919

The etchings that made Chimot’s name, published in 1919 as Les Après-Midi de Montmartre, are precious evidence of Chimot’s pre-war work. They were made in 1913, but publication was delayed by the Great War. You can see that the hairstyles and clothes (when worn) are quite different from the 1920s etchings. The difference in style is not huge, but in these early etchings one can still see the influence of Symbolists such as Félicien Rops, Louis Legrand, Armand Rassenfosse, and Henri Thomas. Édouard Chimot was to take the aesthetic of these artists into the twenties, and blend it seamlessly with the glittering curves of Art Deco.

Édouard Chimot, Moulin Rouge

Etching with aquatint for Les Après-Midi de Montmartre, 1919

Édouard Chimot, La fille et sa mère

Etching with aquatint for Les Après-Midi de Montmartre, 1919

The Après-Midi de Montmartre etchings were printed on a hand press by Eugène Delâtre, in an edition of 170 copies. I love the connection they make right back from the post-war world into the dying days of the Belle Époque.

Édouard Chimot, Opium

Etching with aquatint for Les Après-Midi de Montmartre, 1919

Édouard Chimot, Épave

Etching with aquatint for Les Après-Midi de Montmartre, 1919

After the war, Édouard Chimot established himself in an atelier in the rue Amphère in Montmartre. The atmosphere there is well described by Chimot’s close friend, the poet Maurice Magre, in Magre’s introduction to Chimot’s edition of Jean de Tinan’s La Petite Jeanne pâle. Magre writes, “L’atelier de Chimot est un coin de Paris où Montmartre d’aujourd’hui se condence à certaines heures, se cristallise, donne tout son comique, toute sa couleur et parfois toute sa peine. C’est toujours la pensée d’un individu qui crée et qui groupe. C’est la pensée de Chimot, son amour pour cette forme de l’existence parisienne qui a créé le miroir vivant, aux facettes varies, qui donne en tournant ces images qui ne sont jamais banales et qui toutes sont representatives.”