Jean Émile Laboureur

Jean-Émile Laboureur (Nantes 1877-Pénestin 1943) started his schooling in his native city, showing a flair for drawing while still a child. In 1895 he moved to Paris, where he began to study Law. He stayed there for three years and came into contact with the engraver Auguste Lepère and with Toulouse-Lautrec, both of whom encouraged him to study the techniques of engraving and to present his work in various exhibitions. In 1898 he returned to Nantes to complete his first period of military service. The following year he travelled to Germany, and in the museums there, especially in Dresden and Berlin, he discovered the work of the German engravers at first hand. During this trip he visited Munich and there frequented Les Onze Bourreaux / Die Elf Scharfrichter (The Eleven Executioners), a cabaret and haunt of artists and writers, where he met and became a friend of Marie Laurencin and Guillaume Apollinaire. After a series of setbacks at university and in order to avoid further military service, in 1903 he decided to travel to North America and devote himself to art. He lived in various cities in the United States and Canada, surviving as a painter, engraver, lecturer and drawing teacher. In 1908 he returned to Europe, initially staying in London, then travelling in Greece and Turkey, and subsequently returning to France via Italy and Germany. During this period he made etchings, woodcuts and watercolours inspired by the various kinds of people and countryside that he encountered. Two years later he moved to Paris, where he renewed contact with Apollinaire and Marie Laurencin and made his first illustrations for books, while his style veered towards Cubism. When the First World War broke out, Laboureur was called up and assigned as an interpreter for the British and American troops. During this period he became responsible for the documentation of the War Museum, learnt the technique of the burin, and made a series of albums devoted to scenes at the front and in the rearguard. When the war ended he married Suzanne Salières and continued working as an engraver and book illustrator, moving to Paris in 1925. By 1929 his work had achieved international recognition and he was made President of the committee responsible for setting up the association L’Art Français Indépendant. The economic crisis had a drastic impact on the publishing world, leading to a decrease in commissions, and Laboureur was obliged to move to Pénestin. Normality was re-established in 1935 and he resumed his customary work, taking part in the International Exhibition in Paris in 1937. In 1939, a stroke forced him to withdraw from all activity. With the distance of time, Laboureur has been discovered as one of the great engravers of the century, whose personal style, based on Caran d’Ache and Toulouse-Lautrec, evolved towards modern solutions inspired by Cubism which had a considerable influence on the illustrators of the twenties and thirties. Among Laboureur’s finest offerings are the illustrations he made for texts by French writers such as Colette, Jean Giraudoux, André Gide, Valery Larbaud, Paul-Jean Toulet and Anna de Noailles. The exhibition has been organised around a selection of paintings, engravings and illustrated books which range from his early activity in 1896 to his final works, where Cubist influences give way to his characteristic “clear line” style. In these works, with their very special sense of humour, he combines modern forms with compositions and procedures that come close to those