Adrien BARRERE (1874-1931). Charcoal on tracing paper signe - Lot 402

Adrien BARRERE (1874-1931). Charcoal on tracing paper signed with the stamp of the signature in bottom on the right. 18 x 16 cm. Biography: Adrien Barrère is a French poster artist of theater and cinema and caricaturist of the Belle Époque famous in the five years preceding the First World War. After studying law and medicine, Adrien Barrère turned to illustration and more particularly to caricature. He collaborates to Fantasio since its foundation in 1906. He caricatures parliamentary personalities. His poster with caricatures of the Faculty of Medicine in Paris, the original of which is held by the University of Rouen in dimensions - 116 × 72 cm - twice as large as the latest copies, was immensely popular at the time - not a student who did not have a copy - and reached 420,000 copies printed. He designed a large number of posters for Parisian cinemas and theaters, notably the Grand Guignol. His collaboration with Pathé was fruitful and gave rise to a famous poster: "Tous y mènent leurs enfants". In 1912, the Courrier Cinématographique, a professional journal, described him as the man of the moment at Pathé, creator of more than two hundred posters. He appeared at the Salon des Humoristes in 1911 as a portraitist and caricaturist. He illustrates the work of Courteline. During the Great War, he travelled to the front and to field hospitals in order to produce press drawings that were also published in albums. Barrère is the author in 1919 of the poster of the shaggy and frightening Bolshevik, clenching between his teeth a knife dripping with blood and which served as anti-communist propaganda during the post-war legislative elections. It took up the image of the Senegalese skirmisher "cleaning the trenches" with a knife between his teeth, published in the war propaganda, in the continuity of the tradition of the Grand Guignol.