Louis Icart (1888-1950)
Louis Icart was born in Toulouse, France. He lived in the street Traversière-de-la-balance in the area where there were houses of many outstanding writers and artists, including A. Toulouse-Lautrec. From an early age, Louis began to draw. Following in the footsteps of his father, he studied banking, but later became fond of fashion and soon became known for his sketches. Icart began his career in the studio producing postcards of frank content. First, Louis made copies, but soon he himself became the author. His work began to appear in magazines, orders were received for the design of covers for La Critique Théâtrale.
In France at that time, engravings with pictures of beautiful women became very popular; the pioneers of this fashion were Paul-César Helleu and Manuel Robbe. The combination of ideas about fashion, an obvious love for beautiful women and an understanding of the commercial success of their work allowed Louis Icart to become one of the most famous artists of his time.
Icart participated in the First World War (as a pilot), during which he continued to draw. Returning from the front, he made prints of his drawings, which were in high demand.
Creativity of Icart reached its heyday in the Art Deco period, and the artist became a true symbol of this era, while working in his own style, which relied on the art of French masters of the XVIII century, such as Jean Watteau, Francois Boucher and Jean Honore Fragonard. In the paintings of Icart, some see a resemblance to Impressionists Degas and Monet, in his watercolors - with the Symbolists Redon and Gustav Moreau. Actually, Icart lived outside the framework of the fashionable artistic trends of its time and was not so sympathetic to contemporary art. Nevertheless, his Parisian scenes are excellent documentation of the life he saw around him, and they are as popular today as they were before. Icart's female portraits are very sensual, often erotic, and always carry in themselves an element of humor, which in his works is just as important as the latent or sheer sexuality of his heroines.
The artist met his second wife Fanny in 1914 - a charming 18-year-old blonde. Fanny became a model of Louis and a source of his artistic inspiration for the rest of his life.
After the invasion of the Germans in 1940, Icart turned to more serious subjects in his work. They created a series of works reflecting the horrors of the occupation. This series was called L'Exode (Escape); Icart, like many of his compatriots, was forced to flee from Paris.
In the 1970s, interest in the work of Louis Icarus resumed, and his works were extracted from the archives of the Paris Academy of Arts. Currently, they are very in demand at the world's leading auctions.
