Saturday, August 20, 2011

Paul Jouve

Paul Jouve was a French painter, sculptor and animal artist.
I first noticed his work while browsing through clip files at the Disney Studio library many years ago. But there were only a few samples of some of his animal art.
There seemed to be no major publication on his life's work until 2005.
When I found out about it I immediately ordered it from France. 
The book is titled "Paul Jouve, Peintre, Sculpteur, Animalier" , written by Felix Marcilhac, published by Les Editions de l'Amateur.
Well, an amateur Paul Jouve was not.  He lived from 1878-1973.
He developed his distinctive, powerful style during the 1920ies, when Art Deco was a main artistic trend.
When I first  saw these  drawings and paintings of big cats I almost screamed:
"Where were you when I worked on Lion King???!!"
So much grace, beauty and power in these images. The cats are stunningly stylized, their anatomy simplified and their poses have such elegance to them. 

I believe, had I known his work more before or during production of The Lion King, it would have had an influence on my animation of Scar.
Oh well....

By the way, Jouve depicted all kinds of animals during his long career. He did stunning illustrations for an edition of Kipling's "Jungle Book".















© Les Editions de l'Amateur

20 comments:

  1. Beautiful work, what a find! His work looks like Rembrandt Bugatti sculptures in 2D. Terrific!

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    1. Hi I have one of Paul jouve 22 art oil painting how I can find out how much worth it and where I can sale?

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  2. You're right, Uli.
    And I'l have a post or two on the amazing Bugatti later.

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  3. Un'articolo davvero interessante!
    La plasticità e la solidità dei felini di Jouve è davvero impressionante.

    Ciao
    Paolo

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  4. Hey Andreas,
    I wanted to say thank you for putting up the Marc Davis drawings on this site. I used them in my post on him and I think they worked in it very well. You can read it here.http://50mostinfluentialdisneyanimators.wordpress.com/2011/08/20/16-marc-davis/

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  5. I'd never heard of Paul Jouve but sure am glad you've corrected that deficiency. Thanks!

    The word that comes to mind when seeing his work here is 'powerful'.

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  6. Ohmy, amazing. Another one that definitely goes to my favorites... and to Google search. Thanks so much for the animal artists you've been posting.

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  7. WOW, I definitely agree with Rodney on this one, this is very powerful stuff. Especially the group photo of all the animals. It really tells a story.

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  8. Hi Dejas!

    I loved this post. It is really interesting and beautiful!

    By the way, Lion King is going to release in 3D for the first time! I am happy because I have hope the new audience start to apreciate the 2D animation like us.

    :)

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  9. Beautiful work. That painting of all the animals together looks like a scene right out of The Lion King.

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  10. Wow he really gets all the shapes in there, these will be good for me to look carefully at.

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  11. Really wonderful. Thanks for the introduction.

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  12. Anch'io, se l'avessi conosciuto prima... Complimenti per il tuo bel blog, è una vera miniera di ispirazione.

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  13. Beautiful. "Bold" is the word that comes to mind when I see these. Very powerful illustrations. I could certainly see these being a substantial influence on the style of the lion king if you'd gotten your hands on them.

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  14. I have panthera drawing by Paul Jouve. Andreas please contact with me (my e-mail: kalwariazeb@wp.pl )

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  15. I've been a fan of Paul Jouve's work for four decades. I bought as many of his illustrated books as I could find and afford. They used to be about $1250 each (most were printed in editions of about 130 copies, printed by the finest printer in the world on handmade paper and often with superb unique bindings that drive the price way up) but now they fetch between $6000 - $20,000, so I'm now competing with museums, universities and deep pocket collectors. I was lucky I got what I got when I did. I scored a beautiful Jouve bronze of a baboon contemplating an Egyptian carving of a baboon at Sotheby's many years ago. It was being de-accessioned by LACMA. Those LACMA idiots had no idea as to what they were selling off. Jouve's color sense also blows me away and is reason enough for me to collect his work. There's another French animalier from the same time period whom I think is even better than Jouve (better knowledge of animals and as good if not better color sense). I'm not going to reveal his name until I have amassed as many books and original art of his as I can.

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    1. I have a Jouve tiger painting that I am looking to sell. Any idea how I might go about selling it. It’s an amazing painting and is in a beautiful frame.

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  16. That last "unknown" post was by me, William Stout.

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