Philippe Jullian
| Philippe Jullian | |
|---|---|
| Born | 11 July 1919 Bordeaux, France |
| Died | 25 September 1977 Paris, France |
| Occupation | writer, illustrator |
| Language | French |
| Nationality | French |
| Period | 20th century |
| Genre | Biography, fiction, art history, autobiography |
Philippe Jullian (real name: Philippe Simounet; 11 July 1919 – 25 September 1977) was a French illustrator, art historian, biographer, aesthete, novelist and dandy.
Jullian was born in Bordeaux in 1919. His maternal grandfather was the historian Camille Jullian, known for his multi-volume history of Gaul; his mother had married a man named Simounet, a war veteran whose life ended in poverty and whose name Philippe rejected in favor of his more distinguished grandfather's.
Jullian studied literature at university but left to pursue drawing and painting. In his later years, he resided in England but regularly spent winters in Africa. He also travelled extensively in India and Egypt.
One of his first officially noted works was the first "artist's" label for the famous wine from Château Mouton Rothschild in 1945, in memory of the World War II victory over Germany.
Jullian's book illustrations are witty, ornate, and often grotesque. He produced illustrations for his own books as well as works by Honoré de Balzac, Colette, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Ronald Firbank, Marcel Proust, and Oscar Wilde, among others. His books and articles on Art Nouveau, Symbolism, and other art movements of the fin-de-siècle helped bring about a revival of interest in the period. These include the biography Robert de Montesquiou (1965), Prince of Aesthetes (1967), Esthétes et Magiciens (1969) translated as Dreamers of Decadence (1971), Les Symbolistes (1973), and The Triumph of Art Nouveau (1974). Among others, he admired French painter Antonio de La Gandara. A collector, he published his autobiography, La Brocante, which detailed the "love of small objects," in 1975.
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