Large Lithograph signed Gen PAUL (in pencil), Edith PIAF, French Cancan

Large Lithograph signed Gen PAUL (in pencil), Edith PIAF, French Cancan

Period: 20th century, Lithograph in perfect condition
Signed: Signed in pencil by Gen Paul in the white margin on the right, artist referenced and numbered,
Proof: H.C. (Hors Commerce), H.C. proofs are the first made and are therefore of better color quality than later prints.
Subject: Edith PIAF, The French Cancan, Montmartre, Paris

Dimensions: Height: 54 cm, Width: 67 cm, on Arches Vellum paper

Sold unframed

Biography:
Eugène PAUL, known as Gen PAUL, 1895 / 1975
Gen Paul, born July 2, 1895 in Paris, and died April 30, 1975 in Paris, was a French Expressionist painter. He was also a gouachist, draftsman, engraver, and lithographer.
A friend of Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Gen Paul was self-taught, sometimes reductively referred to as the "painter of Montmartre." He was introduced to engraving by Eugène Delâtre.
The First World War broke out. He was sent as a soldier and wounded twice, once seriously, losing a leg. During his convalescence, he resumed painting and became friends, at the Bateau-Lavoir, with Juan Gris, who helped him greatly.
Although Gen Paul did not attend a fine arts school during his training, he proved gifted enough to earn a living from his art for nearly 60 years. His early works seem to reflect many intersecting influences, including those of his Montmartre friends: Vlaminck, Utrillo, Frank Will, Leprin, and Lucien Génin, but he quickly developed a personality tinged with an expressionism that reflects influences as varied as those of Toulouse-Lautrec, van Gogh, Cézanne, and before them Goya, Velázquez, and El Greco, influences that can be found at this time in the work of his friend Henri-Martin Lamotte. The Cubist influences of Gris, Braque, Picasso, and Fernand Léger are felt in some works, while many of his cityscape etchings are much more "realistic."
During the interwar period, from 1925 to 1929, as the painter sought to overcome his physical disability and the memory of the horrors of war, he produced several of his most renowned paintings. His first oil painting, Moulin de la Galette Seen from His Window, dates from 1916. His early work was uncertain; he mainly painted views of Paris in the style of the great painters to fulfill commissions.
Gen Paul exhibited for the first time at the Salon d'Automne and the Salon des Indépendants in Paris in 1920, a time when Henri-Martin Lamotte was among his friends and he rubbed shoulders with Camille Pissaro and the "Partisans" group. In 1928, his works were exhibited alongside those of Picasso and Soutine, shocking some of the public.
Beginning in the 1930s, Gen Paul sank into alcoholism, which complicated chronic health problems.
In 1934, he was officially recognized for his contributions to French art and awarded the Legion of Honor. In 1937,
In addition to numerous scenes of his Montmartre neighborhood and portraits of his friend, the composer Darius Milhaud, Gen Paul also produced paintings and drawings made in the United States, depicting jazz scenes and classical musicians, subjects in which he showed great interest.
A large number of his works are held in private collections, but a significant number are in museums in France and other European countries, such as the museums of Bern and Granville. The Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris holds two large paintings from the late 1930s.
Gen Paul died at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris on April 30, 1975. He is buried in the Saint Vincent Cemetery in Montmartre.

Sold with invoice
Litho can be viewed at our gallery in L'Isle-sur-la-Sorgue (France) on weekends.

Shipping in a tube
free for France
and quoted for abroad

A1926
 

Ref: 97BL9I9LNL