We talked to gallery owner Jöelle Chariau about working with arguably the greatest — certainly the most avidly collected — fashion illustrator of all: René Gruau.
PQP: Can you tell us how you first met René Gruau?
JC: My first encounter with Gruau took place in 1981 in the pages of a 1952 issue of Graphis an international graphic design magazine. One year before I had opened with my German partner, Andreas Bartsch, a gallery for graphic humour and was hunting for new ideas in the library of the Munich Design Museum. I was immediately struck with the quality, the elegance and the charm of the drawings, but it took me about six months to get in touch with the artist. As I finally met him in his Paris studio, he told me that he had never thought that his work for fashion and publicity could be of interest for collectors, and that for this reason, he had kept close to nothing. As he started reluctantly to go through the drawers of his cabinets, I realized that I knew most of the images, and that my excitement over them was gaining him progressively. That evening, I went away quite late with 60 drawings under my arm and the promise of an exhibition in September. From that moment on, he would call now and then: he had found other drawings on the top of a high cabinet in Rome, in a parcel under a bed in New York, in his basement in Cannes…
PQP: What was the reaction to that first exhibition?
JC: It was a huge press and commercial success (we sold more than 100 drawings!) and was the beginning of a collaboration that lasted until his death in 2004. We went together to Milan, Turin and Paris where he introduced me to his clients so that I could research his work. I published a first book about him in 1984 that appeared in France, Germany and the US and organized with the financial support of Parfums Christian Dior the first retrospective exhibition of his work that took place at Musée Galliera in Paris in 1989 and marked the beginning of a worldwide Gruau Renaissance. I did other exhibitions by him in other museums in Cologne, Munich, New York and Tokyo but it was Galliera that had the biggest impact on his career.
PQP: What was it about fashion illustration that attracted you initially?
JC: The field of fashion drawings that I discovered in the early 80s with Gruau proved to be a fascinating mine of great talents fallen into neglect and being able to do exhibitions by such artists as Georges Lepape (we bought his estate in the 90s), Erté, the artists of Gazette du Bon Ton, Gruau again and again, Antonio, Mats Gustafson, François Berthoud…was a source of excitement that has never worn out.
PQP: Do you feel there is a growing interest in fashion illustration as an art-form? What is it about Gruau's work in particular that attracts such a devoted following?
JC: Although we have been successful, I'm convinced that the best works in this field, situated between art and design, are still much undervalued. Gruau's drawings (roughly between €7,000 and €35,000) reach the highest prices: probably because they tell of a beautiful world of style, luxury, and elegance. Their extreme economy, their interesting architecture, their bold line that prefigures pop art, their efficiency (once seen, one never forgets them, certainly the reason why he remained so much in demand as an advertising artist over more than five decades) make them instantly recognizable as Gruaus, always a positive factor in art dealing, but I guess that the mixure of elegance and sensuality that permeates his drawings is an equally important factor of attraction for his large range of collectors (many of them men, investment bankers, lawyers, industrialists, designers, museum people, artists…)
PQP: And what about Gruau as a person, can you tell us a little about what he was like?
JC: He was a delightful person, the embodiment of the virtues of a vanishing world in which generosity, charm, elegance, humour, were the attributes of a cultivated life, and a brilliant conversation a mere form of politeness. Like all the people who have known him well, I consider myself very privileged.
For more information go to:
www.bartsch-chariau.de
www.renegruau.com
PQP: Can you tell us how you first met René Gruau?
JC: My first encounter with Gruau took place in 1981 in the pages of a 1952 issue of Graphis an international graphic design magazine. One year before I had opened with my German partner, Andreas Bartsch, a gallery for graphic humour and was hunting for new ideas in the library of the Munich Design Museum. I was immediately struck with the quality, the elegance and the charm of the drawings, but it took me about six months to get in touch with the artist. As I finally met him in his Paris studio, he told me that he had never thought that his work for fashion and publicity could be of interest for collectors, and that for this reason, he had kept close to nothing. As he started reluctantly to go through the drawers of his cabinets, I realized that I knew most of the images, and that my excitement over them was gaining him progressively. That evening, I went away quite late with 60 drawings under my arm and the promise of an exhibition in September. From that moment on, he would call now and then: he had found other drawings on the top of a high cabinet in Rome, in a parcel under a bed in New York, in his basement in Cannes…
PQP: What was the reaction to that first exhibition?
JC: It was a huge press and commercial success (we sold more than 100 drawings!) and was the beginning of a collaboration that lasted until his death in 2004. We went together to Milan, Turin and Paris where he introduced me to his clients so that I could research his work. I published a first book about him in 1984 that appeared in France, Germany and the US and organized with the financial support of Parfums Christian Dior the first retrospective exhibition of his work that took place at Musée Galliera in Paris in 1989 and marked the beginning of a worldwide Gruau Renaissance. I did other exhibitions by him in other museums in Cologne, Munich, New York and Tokyo but it was Galliera that had the biggest impact on his career.
PQP: What was it about fashion illustration that attracted you initially?
JC: The field of fashion drawings that I discovered in the early 80s with Gruau proved to be a fascinating mine of great talents fallen into neglect and being able to do exhibitions by such artists as Georges Lepape (we bought his estate in the 90s), Erté, the artists of Gazette du Bon Ton, Gruau again and again, Antonio, Mats Gustafson, François Berthoud…was a source of excitement that has never worn out.
PQP: Do you feel there is a growing interest in fashion illustration as an art-form? What is it about Gruau's work in particular that attracts such a devoted following?
JC: Although we have been successful, I'm convinced that the best works in this field, situated between art and design, are still much undervalued. Gruau's drawings (roughly between €7,000 and €35,000) reach the highest prices: probably because they tell of a beautiful world of style, luxury, and elegance. Their extreme economy, their interesting architecture, their bold line that prefigures pop art, their efficiency (once seen, one never forgets them, certainly the reason why he remained so much in demand as an advertising artist over more than five decades) make them instantly recognizable as Gruaus, always a positive factor in art dealing, but I guess that the mixure of elegance and sensuality that permeates his drawings is an equally important factor of attraction for his large range of collectors (many of them men, investment bankers, lawyers, industrialists, designers, museum people, artists…)
PQP: And what about Gruau as a person, can you tell us a little about what he was like?
JC: He was a delightful person, the embodiment of the virtues of a vanishing world in which generosity, charm, elegance, humour, were the attributes of a cultivated life, and a brilliant conversation a mere form of politeness. Like all the people who have known him well, I consider myself very privileged.
For more information go to:
www.bartsch-chariau.de
www.renegruau.com
