Jean-Paul Goude

Jean-Paul Goude (born 8 December 1940) is a French graphic designer, illustrator, photographer and advertising film director. He worked as art director at Esquire Magazine in New York City during the 1970s, and famously choreographed the 1989 Bicentennial Parade in Paris to mark the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. In addition, over the last three decades, he has created well known campaigns and illustrations for brands including Perrier, Citroën, Kodak, Chanel, Kenzo and Shiseido.

Jean-Paul Goude was born on December 8, 1940 to an American ballet dancer, and a French elevator repair man, and grew up in the Paris suburb of Saint-Mande. As a child, Goude’s mother recognized his natural sense of rhythm, but the most notable characteristic that Goude acknowledged in his childhood self, was a fascination with Aboriginal peoples, and Blacks. From as early as he can remember, Goude would draw images of aboriginals (see Figure 1) and Blacks, and would write stories about the characters he created. For Goude, Aboriginals were his heroes; he would draw them fighting White cowboys, and unsurprisingly, the Aboriginals would always win. Although they were his heroes, Blacks would soon hold a larger place in his heart.

Goude and his mother shared in their fascination with Blacks. As a ballet dancer, his mother envied the beauty of the Black dancers she worked with, and described to her son the jet-black skin of the chorus girls, as well as the unique ways in which the women would move their bodies. Her eyes would light up as she spoke of the Black performers, and Goude would listen, soaking in the views of his mother. In Goude’s Jungle Fever, he shares an image of his mother dancing in the middle of several men sporting black-face makeup. Goude would also utilize black-face in his photography career (see Figure 2). Over the years, this fascination with Blacks would only become more feverish, and as Goude began to dabble in fashion drawings, the models he depicted would always have dark skin. The seldom times that Goude would produce imagery of Whites in his drawings, they always had flat noses and thick lips, described by the artist as “Negroid features”. These characteristics can still be seen in Goude’s work, as the vast majority of his models are Black women. Even decades later, the views developed with the help of his mother continue to fuel Goude’s passion for photography. She also inspired him by exposing him to different forms of print media. "At home, we received American magazines,” Goude told Vogue Magazine. “The advertising, in the 1960s, was extraordinary. The first time an issue of Esquire arrived with a cover by George Lois, I said to myself, that’s what I want to do." He studied at the Ecole Nationale Superieure des Arts Decoratifs in Paris before embarking on his career as an illustrator.

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