MORIN-JEAN, Born Jean Alexis MORIN

The artist Jean Alexis Morin, known as Morin-Jean (1877-1940) is strangely still poorly understood today.  The twin facts that he came to art a bit later in life, probably around age 30, and that he died at the start of World War II, may both have contributed to this obscurity.  It is unclear how much Morin-Jean painted, but probably not that much.  That he was a prolific printmaker is far more assured.  Much of his output was for book illustrations, which were popular in France between the wars.  He did however, also engrave, etch and carve woodblocks to create fine art images.  He did so mostly monochromatically, but at times also in color.  Still lives, flowers, and quiet scenes of domestic life were his primary artistic refuges.