Maison Devambez
It operated under that name from 1873, when a printing business established by the royal engraver Hippolyte Brasseux in 1826 was acquired by Édouard Devambez.
Devambez widened the scope of the business to include advertising and publicity, artists’ prints, luxurious limited edition books, and an important art gallery.
With the artist Édouard Chimot as Editor after the First World War, a series of limited edition art books, employing leading French artists, illustrators and affichistes, reached a high point under the imprimatur A l'Enseigne du Masque d'Or – the Sign of the Golden Mask and with PAN in collaboration with Paul Poiret.
[1] Édouard's son, André Devambez, became a famous painter and illustrator after receiving the Prix de Rome.
[2] He was the younger brother of Brasseux the older, an engraver established in the galleries of the Palais-Royal who was known to work for king Louis Philippe I.
According to an article published in 1927 in L'ami des lettrés, Brasseux the younger was moderately successful in his business and did not succeed to enlarge significantly his customer base.
[citation needed] He served an apprenticeship with the prestigious engravers (and his cousins-in-law) Jules Joseph Foulonneau and Jean Henri Hillekamp at 4, Galerie Vivienne, Paris.
[citation needed] In 1873, Devambez acquired the atelier at 5, Passage des Panoramas, leaving his workshop of rue Saint-Thomas.
This artistic temperament ensured a scrupulous attention to questions of taste, balance and appropriateness in typography, engraving and design.
[4] In 1890, the business moved to 63, Passage des Panoramas, where what began as a simple printing studio became a prestigious store that attracted clients such as the House of Orléans, Roland Bonaparte, the Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria and the Élysée Palace and the Hôtel de Ville, entrusted with the printing of official menus and programmes for receptions for visiting foreign monarchs such as the Emperor of Russia Nicholas II and the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna for their visit in Dunkerque on 18 September 1901.
At this exhibition (for which Édouard Devambez served as a member of the jury), he was named a Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur, and also obtained the prestigious title of Notable Commerçant.
[7] The first Catalogue d’Estampes d’Art, Éditions de Grand Luxe de la Galerie Devambez lists limited edition prints by the following artists: Adler, Baudoux, Berthoud, Boichard, Brouet, Bernard Boutet de Monvel, Bucci, G. Cain, H. Chabanian, G. Charpentier, Damman, Désiré Lucas, Mme Destailleurs-Sevrin, Caro Delvaille, André Devambez, Duchemin, Adrien Étienne [Drian], Fraipont, Pennequin, Albert Guillaume, Labrouche, Herbeaud, J.
The sculptor F. W. Ruckstull was horrified, writing disapprovingly: ‘In his exhibition of drawings, held on 19 October 1908 in the Galerie Devambez in Paris, he showed the most libidinous set of drawings ever exposed to an invited public, in which there were at least two that were frankly pornographic and for which show he was, by both French and foreign people, called "beast", "monster", "vulgar charlatan", "sadist."
The foreword to the catalogue praised the ‘bold, truthful images’, while the critic of Le Journal wrote that, ‘One cannot find in these hundred and fifty sketches and drawings of Rodin a single note seen before.’ This set the tone for a glittering series of important exhibitions, such as the Première Exposition d’Art Nègre et d’Art Océanien, organized by Paul Guillaume, 13–19 May 1919, with a catalogue by Henri Clouzot and additional text by Guillaume Apollinaire.
Artists exhibiting at Galerie Devambez included Mary Cassatt, Armand Guillaumin, Claude-Oscar Monet, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Auguste Marquet, Paul Signac, Raoul Dufy, Maurice de Vlaminck, Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Pablo Picasso, Amedeo Modigliani, Tsuguharu Foujita, and Giorgio de Chirico.
Giorgio de Chirico's important painting Il Ritornante, also exhibited at this show, sold from the collection of Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent at Christie's in February 2009 for €11,041,00 ($14,285,461).
Together, these two important exhibitions curated by Paul Guillaume redefined the spirit and direction of Modernist art in the aftermath of World War I.
Typically, books published by André Devambez under the direction of Chimot were illustrated with original etchings, in strictly limited editions of a few hundred copies.
Devambez may have regretted the extra expense involved in creating this exquisite calling card, as the Wall Street crash and subsequent Depression devastated his market.
So when Adrien Étienne went to Paris to study at the Académie Julian, he took the pseudonym Drian – his own first name, as his contemporaries heard it in his slurred Lorrain accent.
His most famous posters are for Parapluies Revel, La Belle Jardinière, Cachou Lajaunie, Bouillons Kub, and Le Théâtre National de l’Opéra.
[18] Other artists who frequently created posters for Devambez include Lucien Boucher, Roger de Valerio, and Victor Vasarely.
One typical item, an Art Deco-style guide to fashionable Paris complete with a "List of firms recommended", was published for the French State Railways.
It was essentially a collection of 116 Art Deco plates – some pochoir-coloured – advertising all the most exclusive Paris brands, including Van Cleef & Arpels, Judith Barbier, Mitsubishi, Maigret, Hermès, Lanvin, Callot Soeurs, Maxims, Galeries Lafayette, Jane Régay, Les gants Jouvin, La Tour d'Argent, Madeleine Vionnet, Worth, Moulin Rouge, and Devambez themselves.
The illustrators included Gus Bofa (Madeleine Vionnet), Lucien Boucher (Au Printemps), Raoul Dufy (La Baule), Charles Martin (Simon), Sem (Maxim's), and Roger de Valerio (Devambez).
