The art deco boards of Séguy
Although unknown to the general public, Émile Alain Séguy is today considered one of the major and influential artists of the Art Deco period.
Émile-Alain Seguy was born in France in 1877 and studied at the School of Decorative Arts in Paris. He is distinguished by his practice of drawing. Later, in 1913, he founded the art department of the Grands Magasins du Printemps and worked on the publication of sophisticated catalogs. His collections of personal drawings, published between 1902 and 1930, are an attempt to put at the disposal of the creators (…) a set of materials capable of enriching and renewing their productions, and this in a clearly current sense. He is mostly the author of two collections of boards on insects. The first, published in 1928 at Tolmer, is devoted to butterflies, butterflies: twenty plates in colored phototypes to the pattern giving 81 butterflies and 16 decorative compositions. The second, wider in its selection, was published by Duchartre and Van Buggenhoudt in 1929. Insects: twenty plates in color phototyped to the pattern giving eighty insects and sixteen decorative compositions was also stencilled. This inescapable and yet forgotten artist is often confused with his namesake Eugène Seguy, entomologist of international renown.
A plate by E.A. Seguy is presented in the pages of Cercle Magazine N ° 3.
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