Albert Dubout (15 May 1905 – 27 June 1976) was a French

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...

painter Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called the "matrix" or "support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush, but other implements, such as knives, sponges, and ai ...

, and

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Biography

Albert Dubout was born in

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

. After attending school at Nîmes (where he met

Jean Paulhan Jean Paulhan (2 December 1884 – 9 October 1968) was a French writer, literary critic and publisher, director of the literary magazine ''Nouvelle Revue Française'' (NRF) from 1925 to 1940 and from 1946 to 1968. He was a member (Seat 6, 1963–68 ...

) he studied at the fine arts school in

Montpellier Montpellier (, , ; oc, Montpelhièr ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of ...

where he met his first wife, Renée Altier, and where his first drawings were published in the student journal ' in 1923. After moving to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, literary director

Philippe Soupault Philippe Soupault (2 August 1897 – 12 March 1990) was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He was active in Dadaism and later was instrumental in founding the Surrealist movement with André Breton. Soupault ini ...

was the first to hire him to illustrate a book, ' by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Dubout continued on to illustrate numerous editions of books by Boileau, Beaumarchais, Mérimée, Rabelais,

Villon Villon may refer to: * Villon (surname), a French surname * Villon, Yonne, Burgundy, France * 10140 Villon 10140 Villon, provisional designation , is a Nysian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It w ...

, Cervantes, Balzac,

Racine Jean-Baptiste Racine ( , ) (; 22 December 163921 April 1699) was a French dramatist, one of the three great playwrights of 17th-century France, along with Molière and Corneille as well as an important literary figure in the Western traditio ...

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his ...

, Rostand,

Poe Edgar Allan Poe (; Edgar Poe; January 19, 1809 – October 7, 1849) was an American writer, poet, editor, and literary critic. Poe is best known for his poetry and short stories, particularly his tales of mystery and the macabre. He is widel ...

, and

Courteline Georges Courteline born Georges Victor Marcel Moinaux (25 June 1858 – 25 June 1929) was a French dramatist and novelist, a satirist notable for his sharp wit and cynical humor. Biography His family moved from Tours in Indre-et-Loire to Pari ...

. He collaborated on numerous magazines and journals such as '' Le Rire'', '' Marianne'', ''Eclats de Rire'', ''L'os à Moëlle'', '' Paris-Soir'', and ''Ici-Paris''. He also created movie and theatre posters as well as theatrical sets. He worked in advertising, painted oil canvases (over 70 in total) and illustrated many book covers and record sleeves. Albert Dubout also illustrated Gargantua and Pantagruel, oeuvres of the famous French satirist Rabelais. One of his favorite and perhaps unwilling models were an obese tobacconist and the small and scrawny tax collector who lived in the forties and fifties in Agde, Herault, France. In 1953, French president

Vincent Auriol Vincent Jules Auriol (; 27 August 1884 – 1 January 1966) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1947 to 1954. Early life and politics Auriol was born in Revel, Haute-Garonne, as the only child of Jacques Antoine Aurio ...

awarded him 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, ...

. His name also appeared that year in the ''

Petit Larousse ''Le Petit Larousse Illustré'', commonly known simply as ''Le Petit Larousse'' (), is a French-language encyclopedic dictionary published by Éditions Larousse. It first appeared in 1905 and was edited by Claude Augé, following Augé's '' Dicti ...

'' dictionary. In 1965, he illustrated the ''San-Antonio'' book series, at the request of author

Frédéric Dard Frédéric Dard (Frédéric Charles Antoine Dard; 29 June 1921, in Bourgoin-Jallieu, Isère, France – 6 June 2000, in Bonnefontaine, Fribourg, Switzerland) was a French crime writer. He wrote more than three hundred novels, plays and screenplays ...

. In 1967 he married his second wife, Suzanne Ballivet, who was also a painter. He divided his time in this period between Mézy-sur-Seine, near Paris, and

Palavas-les-Flots Palavas-les-Flots (; Languedocien dialect, Languedocien: ''Palavàs'') is a Communes of France, commune in the Hérault Departments of France, department in the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Regions of France, region in southern Fra ...

, on the

south coast South Coast is a name often given to coastal areas to the south of a geographical region or major metropolitan area. Geographical Australia *South Coast (New South Wales), the coast of New South Wales, Australia, south of Sydney * South Coast (Q ...

, until his death in 1976. In 1992, a museum about Dubout was dedicated in Palavas-les-Flots.

Anecdotes

* In his caricatures, Dubout frequently mocked the "little train of Palavas", which ran from nearby

, and the tourists who visited his little seaside town from there.

Bibliography

* ''Dubout''. Carton, les cahiers du dessin d'humour. 1975.

External links

official site

Albert Dubout in HeidICON
Illustrations of 'Der Simpl'

1905 births 1976 deaths French cartoonists French caricaturists French comics artists 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French male painters Artists from Marseille 20th-century French sculptors French male sculptors {{cartoonist-stub