Gen Paul. Gouache

EXPRESSIONISM IN MOTION Born on Rue Lepic in 1895 and remaining loyal to Montmartre until his death in 1975, Eugène Paul—known as Gen Paul—stands out as one of the most distinctive figures of French Expressionism. Initially an apprentice upholsterer, he was severely wounded during the First World War and had his right leg amputated. Upon returning to Paris, unable to resume his trade, he turned to painting as his vocation. A self-taught artist, he honed his craft through contact with the artists of the Butte—notably Juan Gris, Maurice Utrillo, Maurice de Vlaminck, and André Derain. His travels in Spain also revealed to him the power of El Greco, Velázquez, and, above all, Goya. From the mid-1920s onwards, he moved away from the Montmartre views of his early days to develop a highly personal visual language: skewed perspectives, energetic diagonals, distorted silhouettes, and rapid brushstrokes lend his compositions an almost musical intensity. The period from 1925 to 1929—often regarded as his "great period"—fully established this expressionism of movement. Musicians, clowns, horsemen, street scenes, and landscapes of Paris or the Basque Country became the protagonists of a world captured in full momentum. In 1928, the Bing Gallery exhibited his work alongside that of Picasso, Braque, Rouault, and Soutine. After 1930, his palette brightened, and drawing took on greater importance. From then on, works on paper—gouaches, watercolors, drawings, etchings, and lithographs—played a vital role in his creative output. The versatility of these mediums was particularly well-suited to the speed of his line, his sense of composition, and his feel for rhythm. Close to writers and musicians, he illustrated Louis-Ferdinand Céline’s *Journey to the End of the Night* and *Death on Credit* in 1942, and later devoted numerous works to jazz, orchestras, and horse racing. Named a Chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1934 and celebrated in several retrospectives during his lifetime, Gen Paul nonetheless remained a fiercely independent artist. To reduce his body of work merely to Montmartre folklore would be to overlook his true contribution: a style of painting that is free, instinctive, and structurally sound—one in which the line does not simply depict the world but captures its very pulse. SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY • André Roussard, *Gen Paul. La biographie*, Éditions André Roussard, 2006. • Jacques Lambert, *Gen Paul : Un peintre maudit parmi les siens*, La Table Ronde, 2007. • Chantal Le Bobinnec, *Gen Paul à Montmartre*, Chalmin & Perrin, 1995; reprint, Les Éditions de Paris, 2007. • *Gen Paul*, centenary exhibition catalogue, Couvent des Cordeliers, Paris, 1993