Paul Jouve 

Biography of Paul Jouve  ( 1878-1973 )

Paul Jouve was born in 1878, in the city of Marlotte, Seine-et-Marne, and died in Paris on the 13th May 1973. He was a painter as well as a sculptor, member of the academy of Fine Arts.

His vocation of animal painter was stimulated very early, during his frequent walks at the Botanical Garden when he was still a pupil at the Fine Decorative Arts in Paris and also at the Museum of Natural History. The young painter first exhibited at the Salon of French Artists at the age of fifteen. In 1904, he joined Hamburg and Antwerp, tempted by their large zoological gardens.

Paul Jouve and his friend Léon Cauvy were the first residents of the Villa Abd-el-Tif in 1907. There, in Algiers he married Maxime Noiré’s daughter, the first impressionist painter in Algeria. He was one of the first painter to go to Hoggar. Considered to be among the pioneers of animal painters in France, he illustrated The jungle book by Rudyard Kipling in 1914.

Paul Jouve took part at the Universal Exhibitions in 1900, 1925 and 1937 in Paris, where he gained a gold medal during each of his participations. He was also awarded with a gold medal during the 1931’s Colonial Exhibtion in Paris and this was one of his art work that illustrated the front cover of the Exhibition’s guest book. He was a fertile artist, and with his friends Jacques Nam, Edouard Marcel Sandoz, Auguste Trémont, and Gaston Suisse, he took part in many exhibtions in France and abroad. His completely plastic sketches and drawings are those of a real sculptor.