Georges Goursat (Sem), Rare Vintage Art Deco "White Bottoms" Lithograph Pochoir, 1927

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This listing is for the one plate. the cover is not included Lithographs part printed in colour, finished by hand … Read more This listing is for the one plate. the cover is not included Lithographs part printed in colour, finished by hand This portfolio of lively loose pochoir plates sets its sights on pretty much white the title implies: white folks doin' some Jazz Age rump-shakin' to the music of black musicians-a fleshy matron caught up in the groove or banker types Charlestoning the night away, for example. Sem's eye is incomparable, capable of creating figures that are full of life and rich in personality, Sem, 1863-1934 Goursat, Georges Marie, classic art deco style artist, illustrator, poster artist, cartoonist, columnist, and French writer Published in 1927, White Bottoms by SEM (Georges Goursat) is considered by many to be the most decorative, charming and electric work illustrating the joy and excess of the Jazz Age.; the title humorousy refers to the Black Bottom, the dance craze that overtook the Charleston as the era's trademark leg-play. The figures almost dance off the plates and into your lap to le jazz hot you can almost hear from the cats laying out wild rhythms and frenzied riffs. Everyone cuts loose. The energy is palpable. This is Parisian high society of Le Belle Epoch grown-up and co-opting the flaming youth culture of the Roaring Twenties before their own flame dies down and out. High society is slumming in safety here, embracing the thrills without the danger, the highly animated last gasp of forty-to-fifty-somethings, many of whom have gotten a bit thick around the middle. Matrons throw themselves into it with abandon while older gentlemen rev-up what's left of their engines in the company of young dolls or women of a certain age from the neck up trying to hold their own from the waist down. Everybody is having a great time. Tangoville sur Mer featured caricature portraits of well-known men and women in France, including Coco Channel; Octave Mirbeau; Caroline Otero; Auguste Rodin; Gabrielle d'Annunzio; Baron Edmond de Rothschild; Aga Khan III, etc. Georges Goursat was born in 1863 and raised in an upper-middle-class family of PÈrigueux. The wealth inherited from his father at the age of 21allowed him to sustain a gilded youth. In 1888 he self published in PÈrigueux his first three albums of caricatures, signing some as "SEM", allegedly as a tribute to AmÈdÈe de NoÈ who signed his caricatures for Le Monde illustrÈ as "Cham". From 1890 to 1898, he settled for a few years in Bordeaux. During this period, he published more albums and his first press caricatures in "Tourny Noel", "Perigueux IllustrË" et "L'entr'acte Perigourdin". His style matured, becoming both simpler and more precise. From 1898 to 1900, he lived in Marseille. During this stay, he met Jean Lorrain who convinced him to live in Belle …poque Paris. Aged over 50 at the start of World War I, Goursat was not drafted.He nevertheless involved himself as a war correspondent for Le Journal. Some of his rather "chauvinistic" articles had an "enormous impact". Ten were published in 1917 in Un pÈkin sur le front. Two others were incorporated in 1923 in another book, La Ronde de Nuit. In 1916 and 1918 Goursat published two albums of Croquis de Guerre(War sketches). Their style is completely different from his previous work. He also designed posters for war bonds. After the war, Goursat came back to the kind of caricatures that made him famous. In 1919, he published Le Grand Monde ‡ l'envers (High Society upside down). Around 1923, he published 3 almums under the general title of Le Nouveau Monde (The New World). In 1923, he was made an officer of the LÈgion d'honneur. In 1927 he published the album WHITE BOTTOMS, about tango and with a big American influence. In 1929, he was severely impoverished by the economic crisis. After a heart attack in 1933, he died in 1934. Goursat arrived in Paris in March 1900, at the time of the opening of the Universal Exposition. He picked horse races as his way of entry in high society. In June, three months after his arrival, he self-published a new album, Le Turf, with caricatures of many prominent Parisian socialites (MarquessBoni de Castellane, Prince Trubetskoy, Count Clermont-Tonnerre, Baron Alphonse and Gustave de Rothschild, Polaire). The success of this album made him famous overnight. In October of the same year, he published another album, Paris-Trouville, with the same success. Nine others followed until 1913. In 1904, Goursat received the LÈgion d'honneur. In 1909, he exhibited with the painter Auguste Roubille, first in Paris, then in Monte Carlo and London. a diorama, composed of hundreds of wooden figurines "of all the merely Paris celebrities". The art of poster already had its masters when Sem produced its first posters. ChÈret, Cappiello, Alphonse Mucha defined cannons and trained public taste. Sem will simplify the graphics, taking the synthetic style inaugurated by Toulouse-Lautrec, which favors the gesture on the decorative aspect. See less