Pierre Brissaud (1885–1964) - 1914 Pochoir Print, L'Indiscrete

Description

A vibrant art deco, hand coloured pochoir (stencil print) by the esteemed French fashion illustrator, Pierre Bissaud. The hand colouring is wonderfully vibrant gouache. The colorful scene shoes a group of fashionable young women eavesdropping on a couple who have slipped away to a secluded part of the garden party. The inscription at the bottom of the lithograph tells us this is the garden party of Madame Louise Chéruit, born Louise Lemaire, often erroneously called Mme Madeleine Chéruit, who was among the foremost couturiers of her generation, and one of the first women to control a major French fashion house.

The artist has signed in plate and the artwork has been presented in a gilt effect frame with glazing and an attractive, marbled wash-line mount.

Condition

The lithograph has a crease down the centre. The frame has a small chip to the left edge but is in otherwise fine condition.

Size

17 x 31.5cm (6.7" x 12.4")
Framed Size: 39.5 x 51cm (15.6" x 20.1")

Artist Biography

Pierre Brissaud (23 December 1885 – 17 October 1964) was a French Art Deco illustrator, painter, and engraver whose father was Docteur Edouard Brissaud, a student of Docteur Charcot. He was born in Paris and trained at the École des Beaux-Arts and Atelier Fernand Cormon in Montmartre, Paris. His fellow Cormon students were his brother Jacques, André-Édouard Marty, Charles Martin, Georges Lepape. Students at the workshop drew, painted and designed wallpaper, furniture and posters. Earlier, Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh, and Henri Matisse had studied and worked there. His older brother Jacques Brissaud was a portrait and genre painter and his uncle Maurice Boutet de Monvel illustrated the fables of La Fontaine, songbooks for children and a life of Joan of Arc. A first cousin was the celebrated artist and celebrity portrait painter Bernard Boutet de Monvel.

Brissaud is known for his pochoir (stencil) prints for the fashion magazine Gazette du Bon Ton published by Lucien Vogel, Paris. Many of his illustrations are realistic leisure scenes of the well-to-do. They illustrate the designs of Paris fashion houses such as Jeanne Lanvin, Chéruit, Worth, and Doucet. Brissaud's illustrations appeared in Vogue after it bought Bon Ton in 1925, as well as House & Garden and Fortune, and in books like Madame Bovary, Manon Lescaut, Mémoires de Saint-Simon, the autobiographical novels of Anatole France, Two gentlemen of Verona and many others.