Paul Jacoulet
ポール・ジャクレー
(1896-1960)
Self-portrait 1942
https://www.artnet.com/artists/paul-jacoulet/19
The Jacoulet Project is about Paul Jacoulet, an artist born in Paris but who spent his entire life immersed in Japanese culture and life artist. Largely forgotten when he died in 1960, over the past two decades his work has attracted increasing interest by Japanese print collectors. His story defies easy categories: he was a gay man in mid-century Japan, an expatriate navigating multiple cultural identities, a renowned butterfly collector, a classically trained musician, and the adoptive father of a Korean girl — the daughter of one of his long-time assistants. This project treats these threads — gender, aesthetics, identity, reinvention — as part of the richly layered tapestry in which that work was made, and through which we might better understand it today.
A major challenge to understanding Jacoulet is sorting out the truth from the fiction, the reality and the embelishment.
Organization
Jacoulet’s story is approached in three main sections addressing his Life, his Art and the Sources we have about his life and art.
All the section are under development. Contributions are encouraged and greatly appreciated.
- Jacoulet’s Life consist of subsections on
- early life in Tokyo,
- family summer visits to Izu
- South Sea travel
- establishing himself as a woodblockartist
- later success and final years in Karuizawa
- Jacoulet’s Art has subsections on
- foundations in ukiyo-e and shin hanga
- influences, characteristics and critical reception
- exhibitions, domestic and international
- Sources
- On-line sources including youtube videos, blogs and art dealer websites, mainly in English.
- Bibliographic references in English, Japanese and French