GIBRAT - Lot 16

GIBRAT JEAN-PIERRE GIBRAT MATTÉO Sixième époque (1939-1940) (T.6), Futuropolis 2022 Original plate no. 1. Signed. Watercolor and acrylic inks on paper 36 × 48.8 cm (14.17 × 19.21 in.) During the First World War, operators who came to photograph front-line soldiers on behalf of periodicals were often met with hostility, to say the least. For some soldiers, this attitude persisted. In the troop marching towards the fortress of Collioure, look at the expression on the soldier's face as he turns, cigarette in mouth, to stare at the artist. At the very least, you can read disapproval in it... Dynamic and perfectly composed, this lead image is not just the plate's frontispiece: it opens the whole album - the sixth and last in the Mattéo series. If the fortress of Collioure is to our hero what the Château d'If was to Edmond Dantès, he will notoriously spend less time there - just a few plates, not twenty years. This is perhaps underscored by the fact that, after three well-paced panels ending with a sombre but determined portrait of Mattéo, there's a counter-field view of the fortress.