DECARIS Albert

Albert DECARIS Marius-Hippolyte, born on May 6, 1901 in Sotteville-lès-Rouen and died on January 1, 1988 in Paris, was a French painter, decorator, and engraver. He worked extensively with watercolor and ink wash, often in preparation for his engravings, and engraved numerous postage stamps. Trained in graphic arts at the École Estienne, Albert Decaris apprenticed in the engraving workshop of Antoine Dezarrois. He was admitted to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, Cormon workshop, and won the first prize in Rome for engraving in 1919 with a work titled Eve before the Fall. From 1924 to 1926, he was under the direction of Albert Besnard at the Villa Medici. In the 1930s, during the popularity of "luxury" books, Decaris illustrated Hellenistic poems by Léon Cathlin, as well as Vigny's Destinies, Chateaubriand's Letters from Rome, The Book of Kings David and Solomon, Shakespeare's Macbeth, and Pierre de Ronsard. In the 1940s, he illustrated the works of Corneille, Don Quixote, Homer's Iliad, Emile Henriot's Mythology, Anacreon's Odes, Plutarch's Lives of Illustrious Men, and Ovid's Metamorphoses. Uncomfortable with symbolism and certainly not with the abstract, he excelled in lively scenes, reminiscent of romantic or epic illustrations. His style is recognizable by his mastery of drawing, delicate cross-hatching, and voluptuous curves. Decaris completed his first interior decoration for the Palais du Bois (H.-J. Le Même, architect) at the 1937 International Exposition in Paris. For the same architect, he painted murals for the porch of the chalet of the Unknown, commissioned by architect Jean Walter in Megève. Also in 1937, he frescoed the town hall of Vesoul. He also designed tapestry cartoons for the National Furniture (The Vine, The Gardens). In 1938, he painted a large fresco in New York. He created over 600 large engravings on various subjects (mythology, views of Rome, Italy, Greece, Spain, and France, allegories, portraits of contemporaries or historical figures), as well as numerous watercolors and ink washes. He designed and engraved French postage stamps, as well as stamps for French colonies and overseas territories from 1935 to 1985. His first design depicted the cloister of Saint-Trophime in Arles, at the request of the Minister of Posts, Jean Mistler. He is considered one of the great stamp designers and engravers, having created around 500 to 600 stamps, including 174 for metropolitan France. His wife passed away in 1974.