Abel Mignon (2 December 1861 – 30 January 1936) was a French artist and engraver. He engraved

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...

s for France, its colonies and for Czechoslovakia, as well as posters and currency. He studied at the Paris Académie des Beaux-Arts and was a Legion of Honour awardee.

Family life and education

Justin Abel François Xavier Mignon was born in

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefectur ...

on 2 December 1861. During his youth Mignon composed poems in association with Léonce Burret, Charles Fuster and Lucien Schnegg. He studied painting with Jean-Léon Gérôme and Alfred Loudet, and

Louis Pierre Henriquel-Dupont Louis Pierre Henriquel-Dupont (Paris 13 June 1797 – 20 January 1892 Paris) was a French engraver. His students included Charles Bellay, Jean-Baptiste Danguin, Adrien Didier, Alphonse and Jules François, Adolphe-Joseph Huot, Achille and Jule ...

was his engraving professor. He was admitted to the

Beaux-Arts de Paris The Beaux-Arts de Paris is a French ''grande école'' whose primary mission is to provide high-level arts education and training. This is classical and historical School of Fine Arts in France. The art school, which is part of the Paris Sciences ...

in 1882, attempted the prix de Rome scholarship, and in 1884 won the second grand prix for engraving. Mignon was married and had a daughter, Yvonne Bouisset-Mignon (1891-1978), who also had a career in engraving and was married to

Firmin Bouisset Firmin Bouisset (2 September 1859 – 19 March 1925) was a French painter, poster artist and printmaker. Early life He was born on 2 September 1859 in the town of Moissac in the Tarn-et-Garonne Département in France, département in southwes ...

. On 30 January 1936 Mignon died at

Fontainebleau Fontainebleau (; ) is a commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located south-southeast of the centre of Paris. Fontainebleau is a sub-prefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department, and it is the seat of the ''arrondissement ...

and is interred there; his tomb features a bronze medallion portrait executed by

Charles Virion Charles Louis Eugène Virion ( Ajaccio, 1 December 1865"VIRION, Charles Louis Eugène." ''Benezit Dictionary of Artists, Oxford Art Online'', Oxford University Press. Retrieved 23 June 2014. - Montigny-sur-Loing, 30 December 1946) was a noted Fr ...

Career

Mignon's debut was at the

Salon des artistes français The Salon (french: Salon), or rarely Paris Salon (French: ''Salon de Paris'' ), beginning in 1667 was the official art exhibition of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Between 1748 and 1890 it was arguably the greatest annual or biennial art ...

in 1887, where he exhibited wood engravings in the style of

Édouard Toudouze Édouard Toudouze (1848-1907) was a French painter, illustrator, and decorative artist. Biography Toudouze was born to an artistically accomplished family. His father, , was an architect and engraver. His mother, Adele-Anaïs Colin Toudouze, Ad� ...

. He was twice named laureate of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1903 and 1923). In 1908 he was awarded the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon, ...

. Between 1909 and 1923 he was commissioned by the Chalcographie du Louvre. In 1910 he ran, with success, as a candidate in the elections of Seine-et-Marne against Jacques-Louis Dumesnil. Mignon then devoted his time to painting, inspired by

where he lived for a time before returning to engraving. Stamp Fr 1928 Le Travail

6e_Emprunt_National_1920_Poster_by_Abel_Mignon

From 1913 he engraved postage stamps for the French colonies in Africa, such as Dahomey, Guyana, Madagascar, some in the style of works by

Joseph de La Nézière Joseph de La Nézière (1873–1944) was a French people, French painter noted for painting Orientalist scenes and for his work with the French Colonial Office and its program to reform the arts industries in colonial France. Biography Joseph ...

and from 1920 after

Paul Albert Laurens Paul Albert Laurens (18 January 1870 - 27 September 1934) was a French painter. Biography Laurens was the eldest son of painter Jean-Paul Laurens (1838-1921), who was of humble origins, and his wife, Madeleine Willemsens (1848-1913). Laurens wa ...

and Jules Chaplain for the French post office. He created posters for French national causes, such as the 1920 6th National Loan. His 1928 semi-postal stamp for the Caisse d'Amortissement, Sinking Fund, was the first to use the

intaglio printing Intaglio ( ; ) is the family of printing and printmaking techniques in which the image is incised into a surface and the incised line or sunken area holds the ink. It is the direct opposite of a relief print where the parts of the matrix that m ...

method. The design was after a work by Albert Turin. From 1927 he also worked for the Czechoslovak post office engraving stamps after the work of Jaroslav Šetelík. Lithographer and engraver Bertrand Bonpunt studied under Mignon.

References

Bibliography

* M. Couvé, ''Abel Mignon, graveur'', tome 1, Société philatélique de Fontainebleau, 2005. * Abel Mignon, in: ''Relais'' n° 100, revue de la Société des amis du musée de la Poste, décembre 2007. {{DEFAULTSORT:Mignon, Abel Prix de Rome for engraving Knights of the Legion of Honour French poster artists 20th-century French engravers 20th-century French male artists 19th-century French engravers 19th-century French male artists French stamp designers 1936 deaths 1861 births