Louis Icart (1888-1950) French, Art Deco Framed Portrait Print. Titled  "The Sofa". Shows a woman in white sitting on a black sofa, her head cocked to look at the observing artist. Signed bottom right. The original that this print is based on was created circa 1937. 

Overall Size: 29 1/4 x 37 1/4 in. 

Sight Size: 17 1/2 x 25 1/4 in. 

#8331 . 

Louis Justin Laurent Icart was born on December 9th, 1888 in Toulouse, France. He began drawing early on, and his aunt, who was impressed with his talent during a visit, brought him to Paris in 1907, where he dedicated himself to painting and etching. He initially made postcards with copies of existing images, but when he met fellow etcher Louis Legrand he was encouraged to design his own original work, and was also influenced by Legrand’s exploration of erotic subtext in his material. After submitting his first set of original pieces to numerous lithographic publishers in 1909 he received orders for the design of title pages for the magazine La Critique Théâtrale. In 1913 he showed his pictures at the Salon des Humoristes, where he learned of the technique of copperplate engraving and from then on worked exclusively with this process. His style of painting was based on the French masters of the 18th Century, such as Jean-Antoine Watteau, François Boucher and Jean-Honoré Fragonard. His drawings were influenced by Edgar Degas and Claude Monet. His rare watercolors bore features of the symbolists Odilon Redon and Gustave Moreau. Many of his early atmospheric paintings are in shades of brown, gold, and red, although his pictures became brighter during his career until taking a dark twist in his final years. Icart’s most recognizable works are depictions of women that were sensual and erotic, but also always humorous. In his pictures, beautiful courtesans usually frolicked on thick pillows with facial expressions full of passion, dismay, or surprise. Horses, dogs or cats were often part of his subjects, playfully bounding along beside his feminine focal points. In 1914 he met Fanny Volmers, an employee of the Paquin fashion house, whom he married three years later after she had become the primary model for many of his works. Icart fought in the First World War as a fighter pilot. During this time he made countless sketches and etchings with patriotic themes. On his return he made prints of his work, mostly using aquatint and drypoint etching. Because of the great demand, he often published two versions, one for the European and another for the American market. In 1920 he exhibited at the Paris Simonson Gallery, where he received mixed reviews, as tastes were beginning to change. In 1922 Louis Icart traveled with Fanny to New York City for his first American exhibition at the Belmaison Gallery in John Wanamaker’s department store. For his fifty oil paintings shown, he received mixed reviews again, with some calling his work too clinical and detached. However, in the late 1920s, Icart became highly successful again both artistically and financially with his publications and his work for large fashion and design studios when he began to incorporate flapper iconography. He chronicled the shift from the fussy fashions of the late 19th Century to the more sinuous and shapely world of early 20th Century Art Deco and beyond. Icart depicted life in Paris and New York in the 1920s and 1930s in his own style of painting, which enabled him to buy a large house on Montmartre Hill in the north of Paris in 1930. In 1932 Icart showed in the New York Metropolitan Galleries a collection of paintings entitled Les Visions Blanches, but it was one of his last exhibitions, as he did not attend and publicly stated that “showings are pointless as long as the people who matter are still buying.” After the German western campaign Icart turned to more serious issues with “L’Exode,” a series of works that document the horrors of the French Occupation during World War II. During this time Icart was forced to flee the Gestapo and leave behind some of these works, which were rediscovered in the attic of a Paris art academy together with some of his earlier works in the 1970s. Icart returned to a bombed and embittered country in 1946, and died virtually forgotten in his Parisian house in 1950. Icart made over 500 engravings and illustrated more than 30 books in his lifetime, and his contributions to his field has earned him recognition as one of the top Art Deco artists in French history, a symbol of the epoch.