Plate 1 from "Nouvelles Variations"

 

Edouard Benedictus

  1878 - 1930 (biography)

1928 /1929 

color pochoir 

14 1/2 x 11 7/8" image size 

unsigned, as usual 

250 

"Nouvelles Variations par Benedictus" in type below image; City Library of Lincoln Nebraska stamp, bottom center 

 

heavy ivory wove 

published 

Paris: Editions Albert Levy, Librairie Centrale des Beaux-Arts 

JEJA217 

$400.00 

Edouard Benedictus was a French polymath who excelled not only in the visual arts but in music composition, chemistry, and writing. He was also an enthusiastic proponent of the evolution of artistic theories, never hesitating to explore new genres as they arose.

Having established himself as a popular designer and art critic of the Art Nouveau period, writing the influential “L’Art decoratif” article in 1912, he observed and welcomed the rise of graphically dynamic Art Deco style. He published a series of portfolios titled Variations and Variations Nouvelles beginning in 1923, in which he created samples of updated, fashionable color palettes applied to bold geometric floral motifs of his own design. This led to collaborations with textile artists and firms such as Brunet, Meunie et Cie., and the designer Andre Groult.

In plate 1 from “Nouvelles Variations,” evidence of the artist’s love of color and keen sense of design make this pochoir more of an independent work of art exemplary of an era, rather than the sample piece that it was intended for.