Léon Delarbre (1889–1974) was a painter, museum curator, and World War II resistance fighter. After a career as a museum conservator and teacher in his hometown of Belfort, he joined the

French resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

in 1941. Arrested in 1944, he was held in a series of concentration camps where he sketched scenes from camp life. These drawings have been widely used to illustrate the horrors of camp life.

Biography

Delarbre was born into a family of watchmakers on 30 October 1889, in

Masevaux Masevaux (; ; gsw-FR, Màsmìnschter) is a former commune in the Haut-Rhin department in north-eastern France. Demographic evolution History On 1 January 2016, it was merged into the new commune Masevaux-Niederbruck.Oberelsaß(he later commented that he was the grandchild, the child, and the father of a watchmaker.) and jewelers. In 1904 the family resettled in

Belfort Belfort (; archaic german: Beffert/Beffort) is a city in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region in Northeastern France, situated between Lyon and Strasbourg, approximately from the France–Switzerland border. It is the prefecture of the Terr ...

, in the part of the

Haut-Rhin Haut-Rhin (, ; Alsatian: ''Owerelsàss'' or '; german: Oberelsass, ) is a department in the Grand Est region of France, bordering both Germany and Switzerland. It is named after the river Rhine. Its name means ''Upper Rhine''. Haut-Rhin is th ...

that remained French after the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871). Léon apprenticed with his father to become a jeweler, and studied the basics of painting. In 1911, Delarbre joined the garrison of Versailles, and took advantage of his proximity to Paris to prepare for entry in the École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs and the

École des Beaux-Arts École des Beaux-Arts (; ) refers to a number of influential art schools in France. The term is associated with the Beaux-Arts style in architecture and city planning that thrived in France and other countries during the late nineteenth centur ...

. Admitted to both in 1913, he chose to attend the "Arts Decos", but simultaneously studied oil painting with R. Collin at the Beaux-Arts. His studies were interrupted by World War I. After demobilization in 1919, he joined with his brother Albert in taking up his father's jewelry business in 1921. Throughout this period he painted and participated in exhibitions. From 1925 to 1933, he collaborated (with Bersier, Conrad, Lecaron, Cochet and Le Molt) in the decoration of the renovated theater in Belfort. In 1929 he became the curator of the Belfort museum, and in 1935 he founded the Ecole des Beaux-Arts de Belfort, where he taught until his death. Among his students was a young

Nicolai Michoutouchkine Nicolai Michoutouchkine (5 October 1929 – 2 May 2010), a Russian from Vanuatu, was a painter, artist, designer, and collector of Pacific artifacts. He was co-founder with Aloi Pilioko of the Michoutouchkine-Pilioko Foundation and of the Muse ...

. Too old to be mobilized for World War II, he joined the Volontaires de la Liberté, a group active in the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

, in 1941. He was arrested on 3 January 1944 while hiding in his sister's apartment with his family; his daughter described the arrest, which took place in front of his children, and how a German

Feldwebel ''Feldwebel '' (Fw or F, ) is a non-commissioned officer (NCO) rank in several countries. The rank originated in Germany, and is also used in Switzerland, Finland, Sweden, and Estonia. The rank has also been used in Russia, Austria-Hungary, occupi ...

tried to comfort her by saying "''Krieg gross malheur!''" At first incarcerated in Belfort and

Compiègne Compiègne (; pcd, Compiène) is a commune in the Oise department in northern France. It is located on the river Oise. Its inhabitants are called ''Compiégnois''. Administration Compiègne is the seat of two cantons: * Compiègne-1 (with 19 ...

he was deported to Auschwitz,

Buchenwald Buchenwald (; literally 'beech forest') was a Nazi concentration camp established on hill near Weimar, Germany, in July 1937. It was one of the first and the largest of the concentration camps within Germany's 1937 borders. Many actual or su ...

, and

Mittelbau-Dora Mittelbau-Dora (also Dora-Mittelbau and Nordhausen-Dora) was a Nazi concentration camp located near Nordhausen in Thuringia, Germany. It was established in late summer 1943 as a subcamp of Buchenwald concentration camp, supplying slave labour ...

. With the help of friends he managed to procure paper and pencils to depict scenes from the camps, saving the materials by keeping them close to his body while being moved from camp to camp, until he got to Bergen-Belsen, his last stop, where he was liberated by the Allies. The conditions of his environment required Delarbre to forgo his previous interest in drawing landscape, figure and still-life subjects in an academic manner; instead, in a "radical and conscious shift", he drew the human suffering he witnessed. On his return to Paris his drawings were acquired by the Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris and are now exhibited in the Musée de la Résistance et de la Déportation in

Besançon Besançon (, , , ; archaic german: Bisanz; la, Vesontio) is the prefecture of the department of Doubs in the region of Bourgogne-Franche-Comté. The city is located in Eastern France, close to the Jura Mountains and the border with Switzerla ...

. He returned to Belfort and his position in the museum and the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. Delarbre became an honorary member of the

Salon d'Automne The Salon d'Automne (; en, Autumn Salon), or Société du Salon d'automne, is an art exhibition held annually in Paris, France. Since 2011, it is held on the Champs-Élysées, between the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais, in mid-October. The f ...

and exhibited every year. He participated in group shows in Belfort, and was honored in 1959 with a retrospective exhibition. In 1953-1954, he did the underpaintings for five new windows in Belfort's ''Chapelle de la Brasse'', and between 1950 and 1960 decorated two kindergartens. He died of heart failure on 20 May 1974 and is buried in the Brasse cemetery in Belfort.

Works and legacy

Delarbre's sketches made during World War II, now categorized as "evidentiary Holocaust artwork", are frequently used to illustrate the horror of concentration camps. Delarbre drew on paper scraps and printed ordinances, often interrupting his work in the manufacturing of small arms in order to sketch. He drew labour commandos as they worked or retrieved the dead. Especially notable is his famous drawing of the '' Muselmann'' character, a type for the camp prisoners who were doomed to die and had resigned themselves to their fate. Two of his drawings from Dora are in the permanent exhibition at Buchenwald, the camp where he also sketched the so-called

Goethe Oak Goethe Oak (or Goethes Oak), is a name given to a number of oak trees in Germany that are referred to in this way because they allegedly bear some sort of connection to the poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. History Perhaps the most famous one is t ...

, under whose "charred limbs" he used to sit and compose verse. The efficacy of his rendering of the horror of the camps is attested to by

Jacques Friedel Jacques Friedel ForMemRS (; 11 February 1921 – 27 August 2014) was a French physicist and material scientist. Education Friedel attended the Cours Hattemer, a private school. He studied at the École Polytechnique from 1944 to 1946, and the ...

. The Belfort campus of the University of Franche-Comté was opened in 1990 and its law school is named for Delarbre; the city of Belfort named a street near the museum for him.

References

External links

Website on the Delarbre family by Renée Billot

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delarbre, Leon 1889 births 1974 deaths 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French male painters Auschwitz concentration camp survivors Bergen-Belsen concentration camp survivors Buchenwald concentration camp survivors French Resistance members Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp survivors People from Alsace-Lorraine People deported from France École nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs alumni