Jacques Villon

Personal

Vocation

French Cubist painter and printmaker from a noted artistic family. He was the eldest brother of sculptor Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-1918); painter, sculptor and author Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968); and painter Suzanne Duchamp-Crotti (1889-1963). To distinguish himself from his siblings, Gaston Duchamp adopted the pseudonym of Jacques Villon as a tribute to the French medieval poet François Villon. He worked in graphic media, contributing cartoons and illustrations to Parisian newspapers as well as drawing color posters. His work appeared in the satirical weekly Le Courrier français. During the First World War, Villon worked as a cartographer for the army. At his home, in 1911, he and his brothers Raymond and Marcel organized a regular discussion group with artists and critics such as Jean Metzinger, Albert Gleizes, Francis Picabia, Robert Delaunay, Fernand Léger and others that was soon dubbed the Puteaux Group (or the Section d'Or). Among Villon's greatest achievements as a printmaker was his creation of a purely graphic language for cubism – an accomplishment that no other printmaker, including his fellow cubists Pablo Picasso or Georges Braque, could claim. Villon died in his studio at Puteaux on 9 June 1963, aged 87. In May 2004, an oil painting by Villon dated 1913 entitled "L'Acrobate" and measuring 39 1⁄4 by 28 1⁄4 inches sold at Sotheby's for $1,296,000 (US dollars). Link to Wikipedia biography