Édouard Chimot

Édouard Chimot (26 November 1880 – 7 June 1959) was a French artist, illustrator and editor whose career reached its peak in the 1920s in Paris, through the publication of fine quality art-printed books. As artist his own work occupies a characteristic place, but as editor also his role was extremely important in bringing together some of the outstanding talents of that distinctive period in French art and providing the commissions upon which the development of their work in a formal context occurred.

Early career Born in Lille, Chimot studied under Jean-Baptiste Levert and Alexis Mossa at the École des Arts décoratifs in Nice, and then under Pharaon de Winter at the Beaux-Arts, Lille. The course of his early career is unclear. He seems to have first exhibited in 1912, rather late at the age of 32, and perilously close to the outbreak of World War I, which was to cause a four-year hiatus in his career, so that Chimot was 39 by the time he really made his mark on the Paris art world.

It seems possible that Chimot's late start as an artist was because he initially trained as an architect – the only speculation for this is an item on the internet from Fodor's guides, which credits Chimot with the design in 1903 of the Villa Lysis in Capri, for the dissolute Baron Jacques d'Adelswärd-Fersen. He went to Paris at the start of the 20th century and tried various occupations to gain a living, while continuing to draw at night. It was at this time that he bought an etching press and taught himself printmaking, in his rare free time.

In the years before the War Chimot had an atelier in Montmartre, haunted by "jeunes et jolies femmes" was published in an edition of 200 copies in 1991.