앙드레 드방베즈(Andre Devambez)

1867년05월26일 프랑스 출생 - 1943년09월27일

프랑스에서 활동

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He studied with the portrait painter and orientalist Jean Benjamin-Constant, and also received advice from Gabriel Guay and Jules Lefebvre at the Academie Julian.

In 1899 he was elected a member of the Society of Artistes French, at whose annual Salon he exhibited. In 1890 he won the Grand Prix de Rome de Peinture. There are nine of his works in the Orsay Museum in Paris, including his most famous painting, La Charge. This dramatic street scene, painted c.1902, shows a violent confrontation between police and demonstrators on the Boulevard Montmartre, viewed from a high angle. This plunging perspective was one of Devambez?artistic trademarks, as was the production of paintings on wood in small formats, works known as "les Tout-Petits? A retrospective of his work was held at the Mus? de Beauvais in 1988.

As an artist Devambez was attracted to scenes of modern life, and in 1910, being invited to provide decorative panels for the new French Embassy in Vienna, he chose the subject of modern inventions, painting the metro, an omnibus, airships and aeroplanes. Sadly these designs have not survived, but an oil painted the same year, now in the Orsay Museum, gives an idea of how they must have looked. Entitled Le seul oiseau qui vole au-dessus des nuages (The only bird that flies above the clouds), it employs another breathtaking downward perspective to look down on a biplane flying above a cloud-mass, with glimpses of the ground far below. In 1934 Andr?Devambez was appointed official artist to the newly-created French Air Ministry.

Growing up as he did in a printing shop, it was inevitable that Andr?Devambez would also take up printmaking. He produced a considerable number of etchings, including an album of Douze Eaux-fortes, issued in an edition of 150 copies in 1915. The twelve etchings in this rare album are of First World War subjects, with the following titles: Le Froid; Les Trous d'obus; Le Bouclier; L'Incendie; Un Schraprell; La Pluie; L'Espionne; Les Otages; Gare la Marmite; Les R?erves; Le Charbon; Le Fou. Devambez was also a lithographer.

Andre Devambez also wrote and illustrated books. Auguste a Mauvais Caractere (Devambez, 1913) was a children's book, with Andre's own illustrations hand-coloured by the master of the pochoir stencil technique, Jean Saude; the original illustrations were exhibited the following year at the Palais de Glace. This was the first of a number of children's books, including Histoire de la petite Tata et du Gros Patapouf and Les Aventures du Capitaine Mille-Sabords, nos. 8 and 9 in a series of undated stories issued in concertina format "Chez l'auteur? These children's stories were probably intended for the amusement of his son, the archaeologist and curator of Greek and Roman antiquities at the Louvre, Pierre Devambez (1902-1980) and his daughter Valentine (1907-19xx) artist...

Books illustrated by Andre Devambez include Emile Zola, La Fete a Coqueville (Eugene Fasquelle, 1899); Charles Le Goffic, Le Poilu a Gagne la Guerre (1919); and Claude Farrere, Les Condamnes a Mort (Edouard-Joseph & L'illustration, 1920). He also contributed illustrations to Figaro Illustre, Le Rire, and L'illustration.

Alongside his artistic career, Andre Devambez also took over the running of the family atelier, in which he had assisted his father from a very young age, illustrating menus, invitations and catalogues. In keeping with Andre Devambez?fine art background, the firm now began to publish fine illustrated books, and also opened an art gallery, the Galerie Devambez, at which a string of groundbreaking exhibitions was to be held between 1908 and 1931.

ArtworksView All

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    The Charge

    1901

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    The Only Bird that flies above clouds

    1910