Jean-Emile Laboureur

Jean-Emile Laboureur (French, 1877–1943) was a painter, graphic artist, engraver, and illustrator, and founder of the group Les Peintres-Graveurs Indépendants.

Friend to avant-garde poet Guillaume Apollinaire and painter Marie Laurencin, he found inspiration in sources ranging from Hellenistic vase painting to Nabis artists such as Bonnard, Vuillard and Vallotton.

Laboureur was born in Nantes, France in 1877. He arrived in Paris in 1895 to study at the Faculty of Law. Soon he began to attend the Academie Julian, and was introduced to the eminent wood engraver Auguste Lepère, and decided to devote himself to the study of printmaking. Artists like Toulouse-Lautrec, with whom Laboureur became acquainted in 1896, encouraged his sense of humor and irony.

Between 1899 and 1910, Laboureur traveled extensively and lived in Germany, the United States and Britain. He cultivated a broad historical knowledge of engraving in Germany and Italy. In Greece, he was inspired by the elegance of Classical vase painting. He returned to Paris in c.1910/12, and building on this analytical, geometric style with the knowledge and inspiration acquired during his travels, Laboureur developed a decorative style distinctly his own.

By the end of World War I, Laboureur had gained a new audience with his success in book design and illustration. His service in the war had led him to experiment with engraving on metal, which required neither the acid baths of etching nor the bulky equipment of wood engraving. Gradually his style became more fluid, moving away from the rigid properties of Cubism.

Submitted by EastCoastArt