Gustave Pellet

Gustave Jean Baptiste Xavier Pellet was born to a wealthy family. His spend his youth traveling and collecting art books.{{cite book|author=Victor Arwas|title=Belle époque: posters & graphics|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=MiI3AQAAIAAJ|access-date=19 May 2013|year=1978|publisher=Academy Editions|page=29}} When the family fortune disappeared in a financial crash in 1886, Pellet decided, with a part of his book collection, to open a library in the Quai Voltaire in Paris.{{cite book | last = Legrand | first = Louis | title = Louis Legrand : catalogue raisonné | editor-first=Victor |editor-last=Arwas|publisher = Papadakis | location = London | year = 2006 | isbn = 1901092712|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=P2oyAQAAIAAJ&q=%22gustave+pellet%22+1886}} Pellet became a publisher of art books and fine art prints in 1887.{{cite web | url=http://www.metmuseum.org/collections/search-the-collections?ft=*&who=Gustave%20Pellet | title=Gustave Pellet | publisher=The Metropolitan Museum of Art | work=14 artworks | access-date=2013-05-12}}{{cite web | url=http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=19280 | title=Gustave Pellet | publisher=Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) | work=Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec | year=2013 | access-date=2013-05-12}}{{cite news | url=http://www.artic.edu/aic/collections/artwork-search/results/Gustave+Pellet | title=Gustave Pellet | publisher=Art Institute Chicago | work=Works of Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec | access-date=2013-05-12}} He then moved to 51, Rue le Peletier, also in Paris.{{cite web | url=http://www.marquesdecollections.fr/detail.cfm/marque/7306 | title=Pellet, Gustave | publisher=Fondation Custodia | work=Les Marques de Collections de Dessins et d'Estampes | access-date=2013-05-12 | author=Lugt, Fritz|language=French}} Pellet owned the rights to the artworks of Félicien Rops, whose watercolour paintings and drawings he published in a book of a hundred plates engraved by Albert Bertrand, some in colour.

Among Pellet's artists were the Post-Impressionist painters Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec and Paul Signac. However, the artist that Pellet is best known for, and who he was the first to publish, is the engraver Louis Legrand.{{cite web | url=http://www.armstrongfineart.com/bio.php?artistId=3290 | title=Louis Legrand | publisher=Armstrong Fine Art | year=1978 | access-date=2013-05-10 | author=Arwas, Victor}} Artworks such as proof prints published by Pellet were often marked with his distinctive red monogram stamp.{{cite web | url=http://www.campbell-fine-art.com/cat_works.php?art=69 | title=Louis Legrand | publisher=Campbell Fine Art | date=2009–2013 | access-date=2013-05-12}}

The artworks were often erotic, both Toulouse-Lautrec and before him Legrand making detailed studies of the night life of late nineteenth-century Paris.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RCNEldwjVvoC&pg=PR14 | title=Great Lithographs by Toulouse-Lautrec | publisher=Courier Dover | author=Donson, Theodore B. | year=1982 | page=xiv | isbn=0-486-24359-1}} For example, the 1896 Elles ("Them") was a series of ten Toulouse-Lautrec lithographs and a frontispiece, which Pellet had printed on high quality wove paper, in a small edition of only 100; the paper was left deckle edged, and was specially watermarked "G. Pellet / T. Lautrec"; the women are mostly from Paris brothels, and they are shown relaxing, washing and dressing. Pellet inscribed the Elles prints in the lower right corner in pen with brown ink.{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PIt5vE-As3MC&pg=PA26 | title=Graphic Modernism: selections form the Francey and Dr. Martin L. Gecht Collection at the Art Institute of Chicago | publisher=Hudson Hills | author=Art Institute of Chicago | year=2003 | page=26 | isbn=0865592071}}

Pellet published three volumes, Livre d'Heures, La Faune Parisienne, and Poèmes à l'Eau-forte (1914), illustrated by Legrand. He published twenty volumes by Toulouse-Lautrec from 1892 onwards. Alongside his book publishing, Pellet also published individual lithographs by artists including Paul Signac, Georges Redon, Maximilien Luce, and Louis Anquetin.

After the war, Pellet passed on his workshop-gallery to his son-in-law, Maurice Exsteens, who was still selling his work in the 1940s-1950s.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=wdIycgAACAAJ |title=Archives de la maison Gustave Pellet: Gustave Pellet, Maurice Exsteens |date=1962 |publisher=Klipstein & Kornfeld |language=de}}

• Eberhard Kornfeld
• Emil Georg Bührle
• Galerie Bernheim-Jeune

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• {{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=qd-DmQEACAAJ | title=Archives de la Maison Gustave Pellet | publisher=Klipstein et Kornfeld | author=Exsteens, Maurice | year=1962 | location=Bern}}

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Category:1859 births

Category:1919 deaths

Category:French publishers (people)

Category:Place of birth missing