René Gruau (1909-2004) simplified his designs to the point of elegance.
His father was an Italian count and his mother a French aristocrat. When they split up, he went with his mother to Paris, where he became a leading illustrator for haute-couture fashion designers such as Christian Dior.
In the high fashion world, outfits are made by hand specifically for the measurements and even the stance of a given model.
As early as the 1930s, magazines started using photography to represent fashions, so artists needed to come up with a distinctive look that photos couldn't compete with.
His artwork defined both the fashions themselves and the imagery used to market them.
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René Gruau on Wikipedia
3 comments:
Coincidentally, and only slightly off-topic, I'm just now finishing a novel that centers on a women illustrator working in roughly this time period. It's The Masterpiece by Fiona Davis. I have found it to be an engaging storyline, and Davis clearly did a thorough job researching materials, techniques and the obstacles facing illustrators at the time, women in particular. (I saw only one minor technical detail that was either a mistake - or perhaps a mis-reading on my part.)
I'm a longtime Gruau fan. Coincidentally, Just got this email alert for an original Dior study...
https://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/65730551_rene-gruau-study-for-the-three-perfumes
The lithographs are often available but finding originals is a rare treat.
I have a brief foray into fashion illustration during my youth. It was a fun time! Can't wait to see the Dior show coming up at the Denver Art Museum. https://denverartmuseum.org/exhibitions/dior
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