Édouard Chimot

Édouard Chimot (26 November 1880 – 7 June 1959) was a French artist, illustrator and editor whose career reached its peak in the 1920s in Paris, through the publication of fine quality art-printed books. As artist his own work occupies a characteristic place, but as editor also his role was extremely important in bringing together some of the outstanding talents of that distinctive period in French art and providing the commissions upon which the development of their work in a formal context occurred.

Born in Lille, Chimot studied under Jean-Baptiste Levert and Alexis Mossa at the École des Arts décoratifs in Nice, and then under Pharaon de Winter at the Beaux-Arts, Lille. The course of his early career is unclear. He seems to have first exhibited in 1912, rather late at the age of 32, and perilously close to the outbreak of World War I, which was to cause a four-year hiatus in his career, so that Chimot was 39 by the time he really made his mark on the Paris art world.

It seems possible that Chimot's late start as an artist was because he initially trained as an architect - the only evidence for this is an item on the internet from Fodor's guides, which credits Chimot with the design in 1903 of the Villa Lysis in Capri, for the dissolute Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen. He went to Paris at the start of the 20th century and tried various occupations to gain a living, while continuing to draw at night. It was at this time that he bought an etching press and taught himself printmaking, in his rare free time.

In the years before the War Chimot had an atelier in Montmartre, haunted by "jeunes et jolies femmes" who served as his models. His first exhibition of drawings, etchings, and monotypes was in 1912; this was a success, and earned him a commission to illustrate René Baudu’s text Les Après-midi de Montmartre with etchings of what André Warnod termed his "petites filles perdues" (little lost girls). Then came the long interruption of the First World War, during which Chimot was mobilized for nearly five years.

After the war, Chimot rented Renoir’s studio in the Boulevard de Rochechouart. He already had the etchings for Les Après-midi de Montmartre. These were published in 1919, followed by La Montée aux enfers and Les Soirs d’opium by Maurice Magre, Le Fou by Aurele Partorni, L’Enfer by Henri Barbusse, La Petite Jeanne pâle by Jean de Tinan, and Mouki le Delaisse by André Cuel, all illustrated with original etchings between 1920 and 1922. In 1921 Chimot also founded a magazine, La Roseraie: Revue des Arts et des Lettres, published by the printer and publisher La Roseraie under Chimot’s artistic direction. This however ceased production after a single issue.

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