Georges Goursat | |
---|---|
Born | [1] | 23 November 1863
Died | 26 November 1934[2] | (aged 71)
Nationality | French |
Other names | Sem |
Occupation | artist |
Known for | caricatures, posters |
Georges Goursat ([3] – 26 November 1934[2]), known as Sem, was a French caricaturist famous during the Belle Époque.
23 November 1863Georges Goursat was born and raised in an upper-middle-class family from Périgueux.[4] The wealth inherited from his father at the age of 21[5] allowed him to sustain a gilded youth.[6]
In 1888 he self-published his first three albums of caricatures in Périgueux, signing some as "SEM",[7] allegedly as a tribute[8] to Amédée de Noé who signed his caricatures for Le Monde illustré as "Cham".[9]
He settled in Bordeaux from 1890 to 1898.[10] During this period, he published more albums and his first press caricatures in La Petite Gironde[11] and discovered the work of Leonetto Cappiello.[12] His style matured, becoming both simpler and more precise.[13]
During the same period, he made trips to Paris. In 1891, he designed two posters printed in Jules Chéret's workshop for the singer Paulus.[12] He published his first caricatures of artists in L'Illustration (Albert Brasseur) and Le Rire (Paulus, Polin and Yvette Guilbert[i. 1]).[12]
Goursat lived in Marseille from 1898 to 1900,[14][i. 2] where he met Jean Lorrain who convinced him to live in Paris.[15]
Goursat arrived in Paris in March 1900 at the time of the Universal Exposition opening.[16]
He chose horse racing[i. 3] as a way to enter high society.[16] In June 1900 he self-published his new album Le Turf of caricatures of many prominent Parisian socialites, including Marquess Boni de Castellane, Prince Trubetskoy, Count Clermont-Tonnerre, Baron Alphonse, Gustave de Rothschild, and Polaire.[16] The album's success made him famous overnight.[17] In October 1900 he published the album Paris-Trouville with equal success. Goursat published nine other albums before 1913.[18]
In 1904, Goursat received the Légion d'honneur.[19] In 1909, he exhibited with the painter Auguste Roubille, first in Paris and then in Monte Carlo and London. The exhibit included a diorama composed of hundreds of wooden figurines "of all the merely Paris celebrities".[20]
Goursat was not drafted in World War I as he was over 50 years old at the start of the war.[21] He nevertheless involved himself as a war correspondent for Le Journal.[21] Some of his rather "chauvinistic" articles had an "enormous impact".[22] Ten articles were published in 1917 in Un pékin sur le front. Two other articles were incorporated in the 1923 book La Ronde de Nuit.[23] In 1916 and 1918 Goursat published two albums of Croquis de Guerre (War Sketches) with a completely different style than his previous work.[22] He also designed war bond posters.[24]
After the war, Goursat returned to the kind of caricatures that made him famous. In 1919, he published Le Grand Monde à l'envers (High Society Upside Down).[25] Around 1923, he published three albums under the general title of Le Nouveau Monde (transl. The New World).[26] In 1923, he became an officer of the Légion d'honneur.[27]
In 1929, he was severely impoverished by the economic crisis.[28] After a heart attack in 1933,[29] he died in 1934.[2]