Jean Massé Aviation

Gouache on cardboard depicting a Martin 167 in flight, signed lower right. Sold unframed. Jean Massé (1915 – 1998) Apart from his work for the Meccano company, it must be acknowledged that Jean Massé remains little known. However, as a freelancer, he worked as an illustrator for other companies, the most well-known of which was certainly Air France. The airline employed many famous and lesser-known artists. In this context, Jean Massé notably created one of the brand's traditional planispheres. It must be said that although Jean Massé superbly drew automobiles, his preference was for airplanes. His illustrations can be found in many advertisements, for example, the Freyssinge Laboratory, for which he created a beautiful series of airplanes. Still in the field of aviation, he illustrated many books such as "The Adventurous Life of the Great Aviators" in 1973. On this theme, Jean Massé sometimes appears in the auction room, as at Artcurial in 2015 where three watercolors of fighter planes were presented, each estimated at €300/500. If his illustrations are relatively unknown, we know that he will produce many postcards on different themes such as car racing or even sport. In the 1960s, the pen holder was still the tool of schoolchildren, also blotting papers were in vogue and carried advertising, Jean Massé will illustrate a certain number of them on his favorite themes: aviation, automobiles, trains and sport. Jean Massé's work for Dinky Toys occupies an essential part of his career, but if we have seen that the Meccano magazine and the general Meccano/Hornby/Dinky Toys catalogs are not illustrated by him, he will nevertheless work more widely within the Meccano Company, notably for Hornby trains. Thus, Jean Massé will produce a certain number of illustrations for the trains of the HOrnby-acHO series from the creation of this brand in 1960, especially for the accessories and decorative elements of the train networks. Here are two examples of box illustration for a signal box and a luminous signaling bracket. Beyond his career as an illustrator, we know nothing of Jean Massé. No matter, he will remain the one who will have, for our greatest pleasure, illustrated nearly 170 boxes of Dinky Toys models of which a hundred will be signed.