Jean Hugo

Vocation

Family

French painter, illustrator, theatre designer and author. Hugo is predominantly known for his sketches and oil or gouache paintings, which are often executed in small formats. He also illustrated books, designed theatre sets and costumes and produced ceramics, murals, textile designs and stained glass windows. Hugo designed the sets and costumes for Carl Theodor Dreyer's film "The Passion of Joan of Arc" (1928). Brought up in a lively artistic environment (he was the great-grandson of the writer and statesman, Victor Hugo), he began teaching himself drawing and painting and wrote essays and poetry from a very early age. His artistic career spans the 20th century, from his early sketches of the First World War, through the creative ferment of the Parisian interwar years, and up to his death in 1984. He was part of a number of artistic circles that included Jean Cocteau, Raymond Radiguet, Pablo Picasso, Georges Auric, Erik Satie, Blaise Cendrars, Marie-Laure de Noailles, Paul Eluard, Francis Poulenc, Charles Dullin, Louis Jouvet, Colette, Marcel Proust, Jacques Maritain, Max Jacob, Carl Theodor Dreyer, Marie Bell, Louise de Vilmorin, Cecil Beaton and many others. Jean Hugo was married twice, first in 1919 to Valentine Hugo (née Valentine Gross, no children from this marriage) and then in 1949 to Lauretta Hope-Nicholson, with whom he had seven children, several of whom have gone on to establish successful careers in the arts. He died in his home at the Mas de Fourques, near Lunel, France, on 21 June 1984. Link to Wikipedia biography