Bernard Boutet De Monvel (1881-1949)

Bernard Boutet de Monvel (1881-1949)
Erotic scene study, circa 1940
Pencil and black chalk on tracing paper
Studio stamp lower left
25 x 21 cm
Sheet sold without frame

Painter, engraver, illustrator and decorator born in Paris in 1881, Bernard Boutet de Monvel died prematurely in an air accident in the Azores in 1949. Introduced to drawing by his father, the illustrator Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvel, the young man was destined for an artistic career very early on. From 1897, he took lessons from the painter Luc-Olivier Merson and the sculptor Jean Dampt and presented his first paintings at the Salon in 1903. He also delivered numerous illustrations that would appear in various fashion magazines.

Mobilized as a reservist when the First World War broke out, he took part in the Salonika expedition as an aviator. Fallen under the spell of Morocco, he remained there until 1925 and delivered a singular and powerful vision of it through landscapes and animated scenes far from the clichés of Orientalist paintings. The artist, described as a worldly painter, produces a very personal figurative work. He did not ignore any of the artistic currents of his time without ever fully assimilating to one of them. The drawing on tracing paper that we offer, rare in the production of Bernard Boutet de Monvel, is one of a series of drawings probably made around 1940 in connection with an illustration project that will never be published. The very free line of our drawing shows a spontaneity that denotes with its graphic production.