GIBRAT

JEAN-PIERRE GIBRAT LE VOL DU CORBEAU, Dupuis Chaleur et poussière, original illustration produced in 2023. Signed. Watercolor and acrylic on paper 74.8 × 53.7 cm (29.45 × 21.14 in.) At the end of August 1944, a heat wave descends on Paris, as if to greet the Liberation. This illustration does justice to both events. In the background, half-lost in the dust of a late summer unlike any other, the Conciergerie. In the foreground, figures in shadow. "I wondered whether I'd overdone it by obscuring the young man with the pipe and his companion," smiles Jean-Pierre Gibrat, "but you're always too shy... Here, as so often, it was the play of light that interested me. I don't think I missed a trick. Jeanne is luminous. She bursts the screen! Yes, it's her that the viewer discovers at first glance, perched on the Sherman tank that serves as a pedestal for her beauty. Further on, from behind, another woman wears the same red beret... As for the tank, military fanatics will notice that it differs from the original model: longer barrel, stronger caliber, it's a Sherman Firefly, a tank hunter.