$1,600
Bestial Man
LETUAIRE, Pierre
Homme Bestial (original French title) Pen and brush in on thick wove paper. Signed in the image in ink. Provenance: P. Guérin (?), with his green m...
View full detailsPierre LETUAIRE
He may have been a simple man, but Pierre Letuaire (1798-1885) did so in a memorable way. After all, his native city of Toulon did rename a street where he was born after him. Son of a tailor, when his father died, he had to take over the shop, just 16 years of age. Yet he didn’t sit still. Learning to draw on the job, he started as an amateur artist before becoming a drawing teacher in a Lycée in 1823. He kept that post until 1867, all the while gaining in stature as an artist of national renown. Mostly remembered today for his caricatures, which were published in periodicals, such as L’Illustration, Letuaire was a talented draftsman and could render objective topographic subject just as easily as he could sketch someone’s character in a portrait. He left behind mostly drawings, and illustrations, but also a few lithographs.