LABOUREUR, Jean-Émile.

Inquire · Offered by Peter Harrington

Petites Images de la Guerre sur le Front Britannique. First and only edition, limited to 120 signed copies, this copy numbered 106 at the limitation leaf and on all plates; the printing-plates were destroyed on completion of the edition.Inevitably highly uncommon, just 8 locations on WorldCat. Superb suite depicting off-duty scenes on the British Front including "Les Tambours et Fifres", "Les Soldats et la Servante", "Le Marchand de Journaux Anglais", and "Les Soldats a l'Estaminet", "Laboureur's simple abstracted figures and almost cubist landscapes reveal his involvement with contemporary avant-garde art" (Harris & Edelstein, p.55). Born into a bourgeois family in Nantes, Laboureur was originally intended for the law, but gravitated to the study of art when he came to Paris. His first efforts, under the influence of the great engraver Auguste Lepère were primitive Gauguinesque woodcuts. In 1914 when he was attached to the British army he became "définitivement britannisé" (Mornand, Vingt-Deux Artistes du Livre, p.211), fascinated by the nature of life behind the lines; "Jamais, peut-être, le stylisation syncopée de Laboureur ne fut plus affirmée que dans certaines de ses gravures de guerre". An excellent copy of this stylish glimpse of the lighter side of the war.

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