Gen Paul

EXPRESSIONISM IN MOTION

Born on Rue Lepic in 1895 and remaining faithful to Montmartre until his death in 1975,

Eugène Paul, known as Gen Paul, is one of the most distinctive figures of

French Expressionism. Initially an apprentice upholsterer, he was seriously wounded

during World War I and had his right leg amputated. Upon his return to Paris,

unable to resume his trade, he turned to painting as his calling.

Self-taught, he developed his skills through contact with the artists of the Butte, notably Juan Gris,

Maurice Utrillo, Maurice de Vlaminck, and André Derain. His travels to Spain

also revealed to him the power of El Greco, Velázquez, and above all, Goya. Beginning in the

mid-1920s, he moved away from the Montmartre scenes of his early years and developed

a highly personal style: distorted perspectives, dynamic diagonals,

distorted silhouettes, and rapid brushstrokes give his compositions an intensity

that is almost musical.

The period from 1925 to 1929, often considered his “great period,” fully embodies

fully embodies this expressionism of movement. Musicians, clowns, horsemen,

street scenes, and landscapes of Paris or the Basque Country become the protagonists of a world captured

in the heat of the moment. In 1928, the Bing Gallery exhibited his works alongside those of

Picasso, Braque, Rouault, and Soutine.

After 1930, his palette lightened and drawing took on greater importance. His work

on paper—gouaches, watercolors, drawings, engravings, and lithographs—therefore

a central place in his creative practice. The flexibility of these techniques was

particularly well-suited to the speed of his line, his sense of composition, and his penchant for

rhythm. Close to writers and musicians, in 1942 he illustrated *Journey to the End of

the Night* and *Death on Credit* by Louis-Ferdinand Céline, then devoted numerous

works to jazz, orchestras, and horse racing.

Made a Knight of the Legion of Honor in 1934 and celebrated through several retrospectives during his

lifetime, Gen Paul nevertheless remained a fiercely independent artist. To reduce his

body of work solely to Montmartre folklore would be to overlook his true contribution: a style of painting

that is free, instinctive, and carefully constructed, in which the brushstroke does not merely describe the world, but

captures its very pulse.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

• André Roussard, Gen Paul: A Biography, Éditions André Roussard, 2006.

• Jacques Lambert, Gen Paul: A Cursed Painter Among His Own, La Table Ronde, 2007.

• Chantal Le Bobinnec, Gen Paul in Montmartre, Chalmin & Perrin, 1995; reprinted by Les Éditions de Paris,

2007.

• Gen Paul, catalog of the centennial exhibition, Couvent des Cordeliers, Paris, 1995.

• Gen Paul, exhibition catalog, Palais de l’Europe, Menton, 1993.
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