Scrapbook Notebook 4

 
cover by John Walsom

Available to view and download on http://www.joomag.com/en/newsstand/scrapbook-notebook-scrapbook-4/0073215001403556644" target="_blank">Joomag is our fourth edition of Scrapbook Notebook.

Originally published in 2011, in this issue you'll find "Our Favourite Galleries" and "Back in Fashion" by Garrick Webster...

Our Favourite Galleries

Max Gregor: White Cube

 

48 Hoxton Square London N1 6PB Tel: +44 (0)20 7930 5373 http://www.whitecube.com" target="_blank">www.whitecube.com

 Vincent Vigla: Musée d’Orsay

 

62, rue de Lille 75343 Paris Cedex 07 Tel +33 (0)1 40 49 48 14 http://www.musee-orsay.fr" target="_blank">www.musee-orsay.fr

Eric Van Den Boom: Tate Modern



Bankside London SE1 9TG Tel +44 (0)20 7887 8888 http://www.tate.org.uk/modern" target="_blank">www.tate.org.uk/modern

Ian Naylor: Abbot Hall

 

Kendal Cumbria LA9 5AL Tel +44(0)1539 722464 http://www.abbothall.org.uk" target="_blank">www.abbothall.org.uk

all gallery illustrations by John Walsom

Back in Fashion

René Gruau is listed as an inspiration by just about every fashion illustrator on the planet, and to this day his style influences catwalk collections. Garrick Webster looks at the Gruau revival . . .

 
Illustration by René Gruau. Gruau’s classic drawing for the Miss Dior range was used as the show poster for the Dior Illustrated exhibition, held at Somerset House.

The incredible creativity of René Gruau is back, but this time it’s not being revived in a lavish coffee table book, nor hung on a gallery wall. The pre-eminent fashion illustrator’s powerful-yet-sublime brushstokes recently came to life on the catwalk in 40s and 50s-inspired collections shown during London Fashion Week, and in Paris. London-based milliner Stephen Jones was the creative force behind a series of hats that paid homage to Gruau’s consummate flair with paint and ink. “We’d all been to the René Gruau exhibition at Somerset House and that’s really what sparked the whole thing,” explains Jones. “He illustrated Dior clothes in the 40s and 50s so beautifully.” Gruau died in 2004 aged 95 after a lifelong career depicting haute couture and influencing some of its top designers. His creativity and style lives on. It was the Gruau brushstroke that Stephen Jones wanted to capture in the hats, and the milliner deftly used horsehair, and light materials like tulle and organza, to create the effect of the great artist’s brush lifting away from the paper, or running out of paint mid-swoosh. “What we loved most of all was the effervescence in the Gruau brushstroke - that sort of sense of freedom but power at the same time, so that’s really what we tried to capture in the hats,” Jones continues. Just like Stephen Jones and his fellow designers in haute couture, fashion illustrators have also been re-evaluating Gruau thanks to the recent showings of his work at Somerset House and at the Design Museum in London. “Gruau influences most fashion illustrators because he struck the perfect balance between caricature and realism,” points out illustrator Jacqueline Bissett. “I love the graphic nature of his bold use of colour, his lines are so spontaneous.” 

Gruau contended with many of the same pressures today’s fashion illustrator’s face – in particular competition from the camera. In the 1930s when he was establishing his style, photography was becoming a mainstay in the newspapers and magazines that reported on fashion, as well as in advertising. Yet the artist built a brilliant career capturing the exaggerated vivacity of couture that the lens and shutter often miss. The fact Gruau was self-taught is something that chimes with Christian David Moore, who also had no formal training in painting. “I originally felt that this put me at a disadvantage but in hindsight it doesn’t matter either way,” he says. “His ability to make something look so beautiful with so little detail, and such fluidity of line, should be an inspiration to every artist.” Fellow fashion illustrator Nuno Da Costa works in a style that synthesises classic haute couture artwork like Gruau’s with modern influences and digital techniques. The way Gruau’s paintings can speak to the viewer is something he wants to emulate in his work. He believes the renewed interest in Gruau will benefit all illustrators, as it demonstrates just how well great drawings can transcend time and trends. “It was amazing to see just how much interest there still is – and it’s especially lovely when people you would never have imagined had an interest in illustration said that they had seen the exhibition and loved it,” says Da Costa. While Jones’ headwear has resurrected the classic Dior style of the 1940s that René Gruau contributed so much to, the great illustrator himself is sadly no longer with us. But if we could meet the iconic artist today, milliner Stephen Jones knows exactly what he’d do. “I don’t think we’d discuss anything,” he says. “I’d just sit and watch. I wouldn’t want a conversation to take up any time - I’d just want to watch him draw.”

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artist advice and information
watercolour
galleries
interviews
illustration agency
rene gruau
garrick webster
victoria pearce
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