Albert Dubout (15 May 1905 – 27 June 1976) was a French

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comics illustrators/artists in that they produce both the litera ...

illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicate ...

painter Painting is a Visual arts, visual art, which is characterized by the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a solid surface (called "matrix" or "Support (art), support"). The medium is commonly applied to the base with ...

, and

sculptor Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sc ...

Biography

Albert Dubout was born in

Marseille Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...

. After attending school at Nîmes (where he met Jean Paulhan) he studied at the fine arts school in

Montpellier Montpellier (; ) is a city in southern France near the Mediterranean Sea. One of the largest urban centres in the region of Occitania (administrative region), Occitania, Montpellier is the prefecture of the Departments of France, department of ...

where he met his first wife, Renée Altier, and where his first drawings were published in the student journal ' in 1923. After moving to

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

, literary director

Philippe Soupault Philippe Soupault (2 August 1897 – 12 March 1990) was a French writer and poet, novelist, critic, and political activist. He was active in Dadaism and later was instrumental in founding the Surrealist movement with André Breton. Soupault ini ...

was the first to hire him to illustrate a book, ' by Nicolas Boileau-Despréaux. Dubout continued on to illustrate numerous editions of books by Boileau,

Beaumarchais Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais (; 24 January 1732 – 18 May 1799) was a French playwright and diplomat during the Age of Enlightenment. Best known for his three Figaro plays, at various times in his life he was also a watchmaker, invent ...

, Mérimée, Rabelais, Villon,

Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra ( ; ; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was a Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best known for his no ...

, Balzac, Racine,

Voltaire François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778), known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' Voltaire (, ; ), was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, philosopher (''philosophe''), satirist, and historian. Famous for his wit ...

, Rostand, Poe, and Courteline. He collaborated on numerous magazines and journals such as '' Le Rire'', ''

Marianne Marianne () has been the national personification of the French Republic since the French Revolution, as a personification of liberty, equality, fraternity and reason, as well as a portrayal of the Goddess of Liberty. Marianne is displayed i ...

'', ''Eclats de Rire'', ''L'os à Moëlle'', ''

Paris-Soir ''Paris-soir'' () was a French newspaper founded in 1923 and published until 1944 when it was banned for having been a collaborationist newspaper during the war. Publication history The first issue of ''Paris-soir'' came out on 4 October 1923 ...

'', and ''Ici-Paris''. He also created movie and theatre posters as well as theatrical sets. He worked in advertising, painted oil canvases (over 70 in total) and illustrated many book covers and record sleeves. Albert Dubout also illustrated ''Gargantua and Pantagruel'', oeuvres of the famous French satirist Rabelais. One of his favorite and perhaps unwilling models were an obese tobacconist and the small and scrawny tax collector who lived in the forties and fifties in Agde, Herault, France. In 1953, French president

Vincent Auriol Vincent Jules Auriol (; 27 August 1884 – 1 January 1966) was a French politician who served as President of France from 1947 to 1954. Early life and politics Auriol was born in Revel, Haute-Garonne, as the only child of Jacques Antoine Aurio ...

awarded him the

Legion of Honour The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

. His name also appeared that year in the ''

Petit Larousse ''Le Petit Larousse Illustré'', commonly known simply as ''Le Petit Larousse'' (), is a French-language encyclopedic dictionary published by Éditions Larousse. It first appeared in 1905 and was edited by Claude Augé, following Augé's '' D ...

'' dictionary. In 1965, he illustrated the ''San-Antonio'' book series, at the request of author Frédéric Dard. In 1967 he married his second wife, Suzanne Ballivet, who was also a painter. He divided his time in this period between Mézy-sur-Seine, near Paris, and Palavas-les-Flots, on the south coast, until his death in 1976. In 1992, a museum about Dubout was dedicated in Palavas-les-Flots.

Anecdotes

* In his caricatures, Dubout frequently mocked the "little train of Palavas", which ran from nearby

, and the tourists who visited his little seaside town from there.

Bibliography

* ''Dubout''. Carton, les cahiers du dessin d'humour. 1975. * ''Dubout, affiches''. Editions M. Trinckvel. 1985.

External links

official site

Albert Dubout in HeidICON
Illustrations of 'Der Simpl'

1905 births 1976 deaths French illustrators French caricaturists French comics artists 20th-century French painters 20th-century French male artists French male painters Artists from Marseille 20th-century French sculptors French male sculptors {{France-cartoonist-stub