René Gruau

Count Renato Zavagli Ricciardelli delle Caminate, professionally known as René Gruau (4 February 1909 – 31 March 2004) Gruau's artwork is recognized and commended internationally in some of Paris and Italy's most prestigious art museums including the Louvre in Paris and the Blank in Italy. In addition to his international fame and recognition, "Gruau's artwork is known for its timeless and enduring style". When René's mother, Maria Gruau, a French aristocrat, and his father separated when he was three, he moved to Paris with her. Gruau then took his mother's last name, which is the name he is known by, opposed to his father's last name and noble connection. At fourteen, Gruau began to support his mother and himself by selling drawings to the Milanese fashion journal Lidel. He was inspired to pursue fashion illustration by his close relationship with his elegant mother. He demonstrated talent for drawing throughout much of his early life and worked as an illustrator for fashion magazines such as Femina, Marie Claire, and Vogue in Paris in his teens and early 20s.

Gruau's first position as artistic director for advertising was in 1947 with Christian Dior. The two together formed the "New Look" of the time, partially a result of Dior's designs, and partially a result of Gruau's combined interpretation and upgrading of old-style graphic illustration. Gruau formed a friendship with Dior that contributed to their successful collaboration and further enlargement of fashion advertisement, which a primary reason he is mostly remembered for his work with Dior.

Gruau moved to the United States in 1948 to work for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. containing Gruau's signature and surmounted by an asterisk. The monument was designed by architect Pier Luigi Foschi and artist Vittorio d'Augusta, Gruau's ashes and those of his son were inaugurated behind the monument on 31 March 2009, having previously been buried at a different location in the cemetery.

Impact on fashion During Gruau's lifelong career he collaborated with fashion houses such as Givenchy, Balenciaga, Lanvin, Schiaparelli, and Dior in the fashion area of haute couture. His advertising campaigns for Moulin Rouge and Le Lido utilised an old-world aesthetic, celebrating the traditional poster-art graphics of Toulouse-Lautrec, Bonnard and the pre-1900 Parisian artists.

Influences Rene Gruau's style combines an influence of Japanese woodblock prints and the simplified forms of Toulouse Lautrec with a bright and lively color palette. The combination of these elements lends his works an unmistakable feeling of joie de vivre and elegance. While fashion is often the subject of Gruau's works, it is the female form that most grabs the viewer's attention. "Gruau's women are not gamines and never pinups," Gilles de Bure wrote in "Gruau," a biography published in 1989. "They stroll along the Avenue Montaigne, the paths of the Bagatelle, the Croisette in Cannes. They float, they appear, they disappear as if they had neither body nor flesh."